


thyself for company

by curiouswarnings



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Actual Rebellion, Anxiety, Backstory, Canon-Typical Behavior, Character Development, Conspiracy, Cross-Generational Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends, Everyone Has Issues, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Isolation, Loneliness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, Sandworm Lore, Teenage Rebellion, Worldbuilding, Yes you read that right, but like for yourself because you're dead, but like we're dealing with it, the tags are about to get real wild, you get a backstory and you get a backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2020-10-12 19:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouswarnings/pseuds/curiouswarnings
Summary: Even in death, life persists.Betelgeuse faces the consequences of his actions, Lydia realises that having a new mother figure doesn't immediately solve all of her problems, and Juno wishes these people would stop giving her more paperwork to do.(aka I want it to be movie Beetlejuice's turn to be Lydia's weird smelly ghost uncleaka everybody's dead/dying bitch, let's get you some character development)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go lads!
> 
> I've been working on and off on this for the past 2?? 3?? years? and while I always intended to finish it I wasn't working on it solidly, I just added to it every now and then when I felt like it. But! Now I have finally seen the musical I am in full Beetlejuice mode, and I really want to try get this finished! I can't guarantee a regular schedule, but I have a basic plan and a lot of notes, plus a decent amount of framework already written, so I'll probably be adding to it on and off over the next few months in my free time. I'm not very practiced in writing long format stories, so I'm hoping I don't accidentally write myself into a corner/come across any plot holes, so fingers crossed on that front!
> 
> Some notes before we begin!
> 
> The entire premise for this fic came about after I read the trivia for the earlier versions of the script that said Betelgeuse was supposed to have hanged himself (badly) after being rejected by a woman. To me this just seemed so wildly at odds with the character he is as we see him in the film, and I got really fascinated with the idea of developing him myself based on this extra bit off information. From there it grew wildly beyond my original plans and has taken on a life of it's own. There is a lot of made up worldbuilding which will be explained over the course of the story, as well as occasional plot relevant OCs. Lydia and Beetlejuice are the focus but I do plan on having appearances from the other characters as well.
> 
> I also wanted to try and reconcile movie Lydia and Betelgeuse's relationship with their cartoon counterparts. I thought it would be good writing practice to try and challenge myself to write them as friends (which they aren't in the source material), in a way that would seem believable but still largely follow the canon of the film. I might end up borrowing little bits of characterisation for him from the cartoon/and or musical, depending on how things go, and Betelgeuse will likely end up being less disgusting than he is in the film because. Well. Film Betelgeuse is a trashy little goblin, and is the closest thing the film has to antagonist, and if I'm going to write him into a friendship with Lydia I feel like he should be a little nicer then he actually is in canon.
> 
> And on the subject of Lydia and Betelgeuse's relationship; this is purely platonic and will in no way be even hinted to be romantic. Winona Ryder was only 15 when she filmed Beetlejuice, so that's roughly the age I'm interpreting her as in canon, and it would be highly inappropriate to depict Lydia in a romantic relationship with an adult character in any iteration.
> 
> Unavoidably there are discussions and mentions of suicide throughout this. I don't plan on being particularly graphic about it, or in romanticising it in anyway, however it is a central theme of the fic, so if you think that might be a problem for you then either proceed with caution or find something else to read; your mental health should come first here!
> 
> If anyone thinks I need to tag/warn for anything else at any point during the fic just let me know and I'll add them accordingly! I hope you enjoy reading this incredibly self-indulgent endeavor as much as I enjoy writing it!

Betelgeuse had lost track of how long he'd been stuck in the waiting room. Time moved differently in the Neitherworld, and the waiting rooms in particular made it difficult to keep track. You took your eyes off the calendar for 5 minutes and before you knew it two months had passed. He glared moodily around at the other occupants, many of whom had numbers lower than his. The set of legs and her accompanying torso had sadly left some time ago, and the only other occupants of the room were uglier than he was, so he didn't even have anything interesting to goggle at anymore.

He'd come _so close_ that time. If it wasn't for the not-so-odd couple he'd have been home free, after all those centuries. Or as good as, at least. But no, they'd had to ruin it with their _morals_. Stupid newlydeads. He'd like to see how their moral compass held up after a few centuries of untimely death. As he sat dreaming up the most obnoxious and inconvenient curses he could put on the Maitlands, his shrunken head finally reverted to it's original size with a small pop that made his ears ring. He scrubbed a finger in there idly, wincing at the strange sensation. The counter pinged and he his whipped head up to check the number. 27. He groaned slumping further into the uncomfortable sofa (because God forbid they have decent furniture in this place).

If it hadn't been for the sandworm he'd be out of here right now. Splitsville, Gone With the Wind, whatever, point is he wouldn't have to be sitting here waiting for whatever poor bastard they'd assigned as his case worker this time to try and frown at him sternly over the desk and tell him he'd been A Very Naughty Spirit. He had better things, and better people, to do quite frankly. But the damned _sandworm_. That would have killed any other ghost, so to speak. They would have had the spiritual energy sapped right out of them until they withered away into nothing, but luckily, Betelgeuse had energy to spare. Unluckily he'd had a hell of a job getting out of the thing, and he'd lost a lot of energy doing it.

His juice was running low.

Too low even for him to ignore the low grade barrier that- _persuaded_\- ghosts to sit in the waiting room until their caseworkers arrived. It was so subtle that most ghosts wouldn't notice it, but Betelgeuse was not most ghosts. He'd gotten _very_ good at noticing that sort of thing.

The counter pinged again.

28.

At this rate he wouldn't even need to see a case worker- his juice would be back before his number even came up. He brightened considerably at this, smiling smugly to himself, and settled back more comfortably in his seat, ready to take a nap. Maybe he'd dream up some new schemes about escaping the afterlife while he was at it. He closed his eyes...

...and was jolted awake by someone slapping him. He scrambled to sit up, reigning in his legs their undignified sprawl. Miss Argentina stood over him scowling, her open palmed hand still raised.

“Oh good, you're up,” she said.

He lowered his eyes from her face, and made no attempt to hide it.

“Not yet I'm not, but gimme a couplea minutes.”

She stamped on his toes with the hell of her stiletto. “I mean,” she said as he rubbed his foot, “that it's your turn.” She gestured to the door that lead to the offices, looming over him disapprovingly.

He looked at the counter, which now read 35. “Uh, I think there's been a mistake here, babe.” He waved his number at her, which fluttered sadly in his grubby fingers after being crumpled in his pocket for who knew how long.

Miss Argentina rolled her eyes, straightening and turning to head back behind the counter without giving him a second glance. “They put you through early,” she said disdainfully, as she shuffled back into her seat and began rearranging things on her desk that did not appear to need rearranging. She glanced up from straightening some papers when she realised he hadn't made a move to leave. “Go on,” she said, shooing at him with her perfectly manicured hand. “Room 237, shoo!”

Mood considerably soured, Betelgeuse skulked off muttering things under his breath that would make flowers wilt. They picked their fuckin' times to be more efficient didn't they? He could only hope he'd land a rookie case worker and then he'd be able to weasel his way out of this in no time. He skulked his way through the bullpen, discarded papers rustling beneath his feet, and approached the offices at the end of the room.

Once he'd found the right one he kicked the door open moodily-

-to find Juno standing against her desk, back facing him. He stiffened, his sour mood curdling and growing cold, shrivelling up into something hard and unforgiving. She turned from where she'd been looking through the blinds into the bullpen below to regard him steadily, smoke billowing from her slit throat. He watched the smoke spiral up into the aether with poorly concealed longing. What he wouldn't give for a cigarette. He shook his head. _Focus. Weaselling first, cigarette later._

“Can't believe you're still workin' here,” he said with feigned casualness, flopping himself down on the couch by the door. “What's it been? A century? Two?” He raked about in his pockets hopefully for any stray cigarettes he'd missed, but came up empty, and settled for tucking his hands behind his head an putting his legs up on the armrest for good measure, making sure his boots touched the fabric. It was the little things, after all.

Juno just sighed, stubbing her own cigarette out in her overflowing ashtray. “You can't be serious for 5 minutes, can you?”

“It's one of my better qualities,” he said, smiling crookedly at her.

"You're a pain in the ass Betelguese, and I can't protect you any more."

And damn it all if she didn't sound _mournful_ about it.

"I don't need your protection" he hissed, smile snapping off his face. He'd burnt his bridges with Juno a long time ago. He didn't need her help, or her _pity_. He continued to stare at the ashtray, the weak wisps of smoke still curling from the stubbed cigarette. It felt a safer option than looking her in the face.

"I beg to differ," Juno scoffed loudly.

He ended his staring contest with the glass dish full of ash to turn and scowl at her, but found she wasn't looking at him anymore. He watched as she reached into her desk drawer and withdrew a file that looked to be 3 times the size of any other ghosts.

_Ha! whose ever that was they were in deep shit-_

"Your trial was this morning" she went on, throwing the overflowing folder down onto the desk where it landed with a forbidding 'thwack'. His name was stamped across the front._ Ah_. He cleared his throat and picked it up, flicking through it with feigned idleness. Oh boy. A list of charges as long as a sandworm. All of which he was probably guilty of (it got hard to keep track after a few centuries). How the hell the Bureau had even found out about some of this stuff was beyond him, but in centuries of death he knew they had methods of finding things out. He might be low on juice right now, but that didn't mean he couldn't talk his way out of a bad situation. It was practically his best skill, at this point. He had just began concocting ways to con the jury out of some of the charges when Juno's words finally filtered through his plotting.

“Hang on,” he said. “What d'ya mean the trial was _this __morning_?”

“Yup. 7AM, sharp.” Juno lit another cigarette. His eyes tracked it's movement without his permission.

“But I wasn't even there! I was sittin' in that fucking waiting room for weeks!” He shouted, jumping up and waving an arm vaguely in the direction of the waiting room. Juno took a deep, leisurely drag. Betelgeuse's lungs ached in envy.

“That's right.”

Normally, Betelgeuse could talk for England (or any country really, he wasn't picky) but right now he was lost for words. “They- they can't _do_ that, there are rules- I-” he spluttered, papers scrunched and forgotten in his fist.

“Rules are bendable,” Juno said, tapping away the ash again. Her fingernails gleamed in the low light, a red that looked almost black under the green lights flooding in from the bullpen. “This was the last straw for the Bureau. The Maitlands gave their account, the judge made a decision, and the PTB had no objections. In fact, they seemed pretty eager to get you off the streets.”

“Off the-” Betelgeuse attempted to smooth the papers out and read his sentence.

_Oh_.

“Little harsh, don't ya think?” he chuckled uneasily, aiming for nonchalant and missing by several hundred miles.

Juno said nothing. Just blew out another plume of smoke to hang heavy in the air with the rest of it. The lurid lights of the Neitherworld caught in the haze and her whole office seemed to glow with it, leaving her almost silhouetted in the gloom. Her eyes were dark and serious and he looked away suddenly, unable to meet her gaze.

Typically things moved so slowly in the Afterlife; they were all dead, so who needed to rush? But they must have already moved in to question the Maitlands, meaning they knew about his trip down a sandworm's gullet. They knew he needed time to regroup, and it was time he didn't have. They were acting now so he wouldn't get away. Shit. _Shit_.

_Right, _he thought, staring blankly at the papers, he had to work fast, counter measures, he didn't have much time or much juice for that matter, but-

As if reading his mind (because even after all these years, Juno _still_ knew him) she said; "Give it up. They've got a case against you spanning hundreds of years, you're out of energy, and out of time. They won't let me intervene on your behalf, not again."

He grinned sharply at her, his smile manic in the low light of the Neitherworld. "You forget who you're talking to here, Juno?"  
He flicked restlessly through his folder for anything he could use to appeal to the judge, to the Bureau _anything_. But there was no one here for him to manipulate. Just Juno, who knew him far too well for that.

"Betelgeuse."

He stilled his flicking, not daring to look up at her, the tone too sincere for his liking, and tension crept it's creaky fingers up his spine. He clenched his jaw (which had never been quite right after he'd died), waiting for her to go on.

"They're not going to give you a light sentence this time. There are too many charges against you already, not to mention what you pulled with the Maitlands and that little girl."

“She was a means to an end,” he said, hastily, “No big deal,”

Juno snorted derisively, before reaching into her jacket and holding out a pack of cigarettes, only one missing. He almost didn't take it, but his cravings won over his pride (he never did have much of that) and he reached over to take the box, tucking it into his own jacket for later. Something told him he was gonna need it.

“You know that marrying into the living world only gets you so far. It's not a way out, not the way you want it to be.”

_Would have been better than nothing_, he thought, bitterly. “Yeah, well, can't blame a guy for trying, right?”

“There is no way out, Betelgeuse. Not for people like you.”

“People like _us_, you mean?” he said, sneering spitefully at her.

Her hand twitched, and he knew she wanted to lift it to her throat, and he knew his remark had stung the way he mean it to.

But all she said was; “You went too far, and they're coming for you, big time.”

“Hey, I played by the rules this time-”

“The _girl_,-”

“Look, that was just for the contract-”

“You exposed yourself to a houseful of living people! You directly interacted with the living, you're not allowed to do that!”

He blew out a long, rattling breath, staring unseeingly at the words on his file. Juno was right, of course. He'd always know what he was messing with, what rules he was breaking. They really had him backed into a corner this time.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry things turned out the way they did."

He snapped his head up to stare at his former boss. She was looking at him almost _sadly_, and Beetlegeuse felt something inside him squirm unpleasantly at the sight.

"I'm not," he spat, smiling at her with too many teeth. It was spiteful and unnecessary, but he knew she expected nothing less from him these days, and the slight disappointment on her face felt like a victory. He'd take what petty pleasures he could get. While he still had petty pleasures to take.

\-----

Lydia swept the little pile of paper cuttings into the waste paper basket, careful not to get any of her photographs caught up with them. She held up a few cuttings idly to the page she was working on in her sketchbook, frowning when none of them seemed to fit. She was trying to put together a mixed media piece on Edgar Allan Poe but it just wasn't coming together. The composition felt all off and no matter what she couldn't seem to find the right pieces to get everything to go the way she wanted it to.

She sighed, letting her sketchbook slip shut and rolling onto her back. Maybe she should show it to Barbara later, get a second opinion. She stared at her bedroom ceiling, photos scattered about her like fallen leaves, or flowers left for the dead. That was kinda poetic, she thought. Maybe she should write it down. She crossed her arms over her chest like a corpse, kicking her legs idly where they stuck off the end of her bed. The mattress shook with the movement, and some of the photos fluttered sadly to the floor. She didn't have what she needed here, she decided, after a few more moments of staring at the ceiling. She heaved herself off the bed, scooping up the fallen photographs and shoving them unceremoniously into her sketchbook. Fresh material, that's what she needed. She grabbed her camera from its resting place on the dresser and hurried downstairs.

“Oh, Lydia! Come here a second would you?” Delia called as Lydia passed her study on the landing.

“What do you think?” she asked as Lydia walked in. She gestured to her latest work with clay covered hands.

After their brush with the supernatural last year Delia had thrown herself back into her sculpting. She'd fire Bernard, found a new agent, fired _him_ when he tried to get her to change her style to make it more marketable, and then began badgering every gallery and art magazine that would take her calls until she'd made a name for herself. Lydia peered at her latest effort, unsure what to make of it. Like a lot of Delia's work, Lydia didn't have a strong opinion on it, mostly because she didn't have a strong opinion on Delia. It looked like a porcupine and a Rubik's cube had gone through a nuclear reactor together.

“Well?” Delia prompted, scanning Lydia's face intently for her reaction.

Lydia attempted a smiled, hoping it looked encouraging, if not convincing. “It looks great Delia.”

Her stepmother seemed pleased enough with this, and stepped back next to Lydia to look over the sculpture herself.

“You know, we should have a photoshoot one day,” she said, before Lydia could escape during the lull in conversation. “You could photograph my work! Or whatever- we'll work out the details later.” She waving an overly dismissive hand, smiling a little manically.

“Yeah, I guess,” Lydia said, feigning interest. It wasn't the first time Delia had suggested this. Lydia didn't see why; Delia had plenty of professionals to take pictures of her work, it wasn't as if she didn't know what kind of things Lydia liked to use as her photography subjects.

Delia clapped her clay covered hands in excitement, oblivious to her stepdaughter's ambivalence. “Oh! I have so many new ideas!” For a moment she stared blanky at her sculpture, lost in whatever world Delia went to to dream up her sculptures. Lydia began to edge back towards the stairs, and the movement caught Delia's eye, breaking her out of her reverie. She blinked, turning back to Lydia and noticing her camera for the first time. “Going out?”

Lydia shrugged. “Just thought I'd take a few quick ones- probably just cut em up for collage material.” she replied, not bothering to explain about her current project. Delia probably wouldn't be interested anyway.

Indeed she had already gone back to looking at her sculpture, tilting her head about in consideration, which had the effect of making her look like a very well dressed bird. “Well, just as long as you're home for dinner, we're having guests tonight,” she said distractedly. “Otho is coming over and he's bringing someone who's interested in my work.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows at that, momentarily forgetting she was trying to escape the conversation. “You actually convinced Otho to set foot in here again? Wow.”

After the fiasco with his suit he had sworn he wasn't coming back while there were still ghosts around.

Delia nodded her head, still looking at the sculpture, her mismatched earrings swinging erratically with the movement. “I promised him the Maitlands didn't hold a grudge,” she said authoritatively, wiping her hands on her work apron. Lydia wondered if this were actually true, or if she was just making assumptions. Or being bossy. Both things that Delia excelled at.

Lydia let the door fall shut behind her as she headed outside, no particular destination in mind.

It was late afternoon, but the weather was still decently warm for mid September and she didn't bother with a coat. The sun was glowing gold over the small town, casting cool blue shadows to the east, and would set in just a few more hours. She snapped a few photos on the way past of things that caught her eye, the way the light cast certain shadows, a cat that was sunning itself on someone's drive, but mostly things were the same as always. Not much seemed to change in Winter River. It was like living in a Norman Rockwell painting, everything was neat and tidy and picturesque. Kinda funny that _this_ was where Lydia had discovered a genuine haunted house; you'd have thought it would have happened in a more spooky setting.

It wasn't until she reached the river that she realised how far she'd let her feet carry her, having been lost in idle thought for the duration of her walk. She stopped by the covered bridge, it's white roof glowing in the late afternoon sun. When they had first arrived, it had still been unpainted, raw new wood waiting for it's first undercoat. Now it's red exterior was starting to show signs of weathering, spattered with mud and dust along the bottom. Someone had left flowers tied to a post outside. She didn't need to check for a card or a photograph; she knew who they were for. She snapped a picture of the wilting flowers. She had quite a collection of these now, and once they were developed she usually gave them to the Maitlands; they seemed to like knowing the living were still thinking of them.

She peered over the edge of the bank and into the river below. Come winter the water would be rushing, but at the moment it was still, moving imperceptibly, sunlight flashing over little eddies and ripples. She tried to imagine what it must have been like, to be trapped down there. It didn't look too deep, but appearances were deceiving. She shivered, hurrying away from the river's edge and onto the (relative) safety of the bridge. She figured she might as well take a trip to the cemetery since she'd come this far out. It seemed appropriate, for Poe. Her boots clunked hollowly over the wooden bridge, echoing quietly in the sheltered space. Above her there were a few wispy cobwebs, the remnants of spiders past who had once sought shelter under the bridge's roof. Where the shade of the bridge ended she could see dust motes floating in the air, and she paused to take a photo of the long shadow of the tunnel with the glowing light at the end. It had pretty good contrast, she thought. She probably wouldn't be showing Adam and Barbara this one though.

Over the past year she'd come to love both the Maitlands like they were her own parents, but she'd grown especially close to Barbara. Lydia didn't have a great track record when it came to mother figures, and Barbara had slotted into that mother-shaped hole like it was meant for her. She was never too busy to spend time with her, (although that probably wasn't too heard given she was dead and all), she talked to her about _everything_, books, movies, her photography projects, whether pineapple belonged on pizza or not. And Barbara _always_ listened.

Except when it came to one topic.

Death.

Lydia would try and broach the subject, ask what it was like when they went through the door, how things worked there, and Barbara would, not unkindly, change the subject. Lydia wasn't stupid, she knew what she was doing. It was starting to get frustrating, like a particularly conspicuous elephant in the room. They were _dead_, it's not like they could avoid giving her any details forever, she was already confronting death on a daily basis. Plus they had the handbook- the new and old editions, both of which she'd read cover to cover.

But Barbara's lack of communication on this matter, while annoying, was nowhere near as bad as what they all collectively avoided talking about.

_Nobody_ wanted to talk about what had happened last year. After the initial panic and shock had died down, once things had settled down into their new normal, the Maitlands had been called to testify against Him. When they'd returned (about a week later, though to them it had only seemed like a day or so at most) they'd vowed to put the whole thing behind them, a fresh start for them all. It had seemed like a good idea, at the time, even Lydia had agreed, and her father and Delia.

But sometimes she would have nightmares. Even though it had been over a year, and Juno had come by afterwards to tell them that He was out of the picture, and they wouldn't be seeing him again. Nightmares about drowning, the water filled with snakes that squeezed the breathe out of her when she tried to swim for the surface, and she wanted _so badly_ to talk to someone about it, but she didn't even know where to begin. She wanted to tell Barbara, but every time she thought of bringing it up she remembered the way she shut down when Lydia tried to talk about dead things. Like she thought ignoring it would make the problem go away.

She couldn't tell her dad, he'd have another breakdown for sure. Delia was...Delia. Adam was looking like her best option, but the thought of hiding it from Barbara left her feeling strangely guilty. She didn't _want_ to hide things from her, but...Maybe she was relying on her too much. She wasn't her mother. Lydia's mother was probably half way across the country, doing whatever it was that ostensibly childless funeral home directors did. She probably didn't even tell people that she had a daughter. The thought did nothing but sour Lydia's mood further.

The cemetery where the Maitlands were buried was a new one, opened only 40 or so years ago, Adam had told her once, more than happy to talk about local history. The old cemetery, first opened in 1875, was located in an overgrown patch of land just a little past the edge of what consisted as a town center in Winter River. Adam hadn't built it into the model, but he'd pointed out roughly where it should be, and told Lydia to check it out.

“Seems like your kinda scene,” he'd said to her, winking, and he'd been right. She loved it. It had fallen into disrepair over the years, the plants growing unchecked, the grass overgrown. In spring it bloomed with wild flowers and birds would nest in the twisted trees lining the property. And it was absolutely crawling with bugs. She'd asked for a new macro lens for her birthday and had spent hours photographing spiders to the sound of crickets in the summer sun.

She had reached the cemetery now, pushing the cold iron gates open. They shrieked loudly in the quiet afternoon air, and the metal felt bumpy and uneven with layers of weathered paint that flaked off on her hands. She was starting to regret taking a walk, all it seemed to have done was to unsettle her thoughts. She shouldn't let it control her the way it did, she thought, with mounting frustration. It was over and done with, what reason was there for her to keep waking up at night with the phantom sensation of water flooding her lungs?

She should be happy. She _was_ happy, most days, but. There was something. Something that had been hanging over her, the shadow of last year. Something great, and black, and, snake-shaped. She stepped into the wilderness of the cemetery and let the grass and ivy welcome her, trying to put such thoughts from her head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little rough in places but I really want to get the ball rolling so we can get to the good stuff!! I'm impatient!!  
I've been looking over my plot notes for this and realising how absolutely wild some of the stuff I'm planning is.  
A bold departure from the original source material indeed ;) but what are fics for, if not for exploring what ifs? 
> 
> The next chapter will needs a lot of work before it's ready to be, posted so it might be a little longer before the next update. Hope you enjoy!

Lydia spent a good 2 hours taking photographs in the cemetery. Engrossed in her work she completely forgot the things she had been worrying about. She also completely forgot about dinner and had to run home to back in time, hurrying upstairs to deposit her camera back in her bedroom.

“Lydia, please tell me you're ready for dinner, Otho will be here any minute,” Delia called upstairs, deep in her usual pre-dinner party panic.

Lydia looked herself over quickly in the mirror. She brushed a few stray leaves from her hair, some grass from the skirt of her dress, but otherwise, she decided she looked presentable enough. She trotted back downstairs, and had just reached the bottom when the doorbell rang.

“Lydia, let Otho in please?”

Lydia rolled her eyes as she watched Delia flit obsessively around the dinner table, straightening things that didn't need to be straightened, and going to retrieve extra wine glasses from the kitchen.

The doorbell rang again.

“Alright, alright,” she said, reaching for the handle. “Jeez Otho, would it kill you to wait a second-”

The woman on the doorstep was definitely not Otho. She was tall- at least 6 feet, and lean, somewhere in her late 30s, early 40s ,perhaps. She had neatly styled dark red hair, almost like rust, and an impossibly neat black suit to match. Her hand was still raised from ringing the doorbell, but after a moment she lowered it, bringing both of them to rest regally behind her back.

“Good evening,” she said, pleasantly, eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled at Lydia.

“Uh-” Lydia said stupidly. Somehow, she'd forgotten that Otho was bringing a guest.

“I see you've met Ms. Karswell.” Otho said as he appeared at the door. “I was just getting the wine out of the car for your mother- she's in the kitchen I suppose?” He said, breezing past her without waiting to be invited.

She watched him go, still feeling rather bewildered, before turning back to the woman on the doorstep. She hadn't moved an inch, but was smiling down at her, looking amused.

“May I come in Miss Deetz?” she asked pleasantly.

Suddenly she was glad she'd bothered to put her make up on, hoping that it was at least hiding how red her face was.

“Uh- yeah- sure,” she mumbled, stepping back to let her in.

She strode past her and followed Otho into the dining room, and Lydia let the door fall shut behind her. Dazedly, she followed.

Karswell, as Otho had called her, was shaking Delia's hand gently as she entered, her stepmother laughing shrilly and looking flattered by something the other woman had said. Her father only looked mildly uncomfortable, which was an achievement when it came to Delia's stranger social circles. Charles spotted her and brightened immediately, relieved of the distraction.

“I see you've met our lovely daughter,” he said, smiling and putting an arm on her shoulders as she joined them.

Karswell turned to her, and bowed her head slightly. “Indeed I have, though not formally” she extended a slender hand to her, which she took. She shook it delicately, the metal of her rings warm against Lydia's hand.

“Miss Deetz, Alison Karswell, at your service.” She smiled, again in the same quietly amused way she had before. Lydia smiled back, withdrawing her hand.

“Well, is everyone ready for starters?” Delia asked, clapping her hands together.

Thankfully, dinner was a smooth affair, passing largely uneventfully. Lydia wasn't sure what to make of Karswell. She was nice. Very polite. A good deal less strange than she had been expecting, and a lot better company too. She seemed to have a topic of conversation to suit everyone, discussing art with Delia, birdwatching with her father, and managing to keep up with just about every shift in discussion that passed around the table. Lydia, as was usually the case, said very little. She was the odd one out, as usual, being the only child present.

It wasn't until Delia was bringing out dessert that Karswell broached the reason she was having dinner with them to begin with.

“I must confess, Delia, that I may rather have you under false pretenses.” she said, taking a sip of her wine.

Delia laughed uncomfortably. “What? What do you mean?” she asked expectantly, her voice just one octave shy of demanding. The grip on her dessert fork would have been white knuckled, if she hadn't been wearing gloves.

_Here we go_, thought Lydia, poking at her dessert. _This was where everything went to shit_. Delia had gotten her hopes up about a new commission, and now she wasn't going to get it and they would all have to put up with her neurotic moods afterwards. Lydia scraped the last crumbs of tiramisu off her plate and licked them off her fork sullenly.

Karswell laughed deeply, clearly catching the hysteria lacing her voice. “Nothing to worry about, I can assure you,” she said. “But I must admit that I rather wanted to ask you a question about your work. The piece you displayed last year? Ah- “Snake Eyes” I believe you called it?”

Lydia tensed. Her father inhaled a little too sharply into his wine and coughed. Otho glanced surreptitiously down a his suit to make sure it was still the right colours.

“Yes, that's what I called it,” Delia said, primly, looking at Karswell intently.

Lydia stared at her plate, not daring to look up.

Karswell continued to smile, nodding pleasantly at Delia. “A wonderful piece, I thought, I just wondered- how did you come about the design?” She leaned over the table ever so slightly, attention entirely focused on Delia. There was a girlish sparkle in her eyes that couldn't be mistaken for anything but genuine interest.

“Oh, you know how it is,” Delia laughed, a little hysterically, gesturing a little too wildly. “These things just- come to me!”

“I see,” Karswell said, still smiling. “I thought perhaps, you might have seen it somewhere. In a book perhaps?”

“No, no book,” Delia said, tapping a nervous finger against her wine glass.

“It bears a remarkable resemblance to an illustration I have seen- a book in my private collection- and I was astonished to see such a likeness in your sculpture. It is a very rare book you see, and to my knowledge I have the only copy.”

“No, no books,” Delia said again, smiling a little too wide and taking nervous sip of wine. If Karswell noticed the awkward repetition she said nothing.

“How fascinating,” Karswell replied, and she appeared to mean it. “I wonder perhaps, if you'd consider working with me on a little project. I'm sure Otho has mentioned I have a rather vast knowledge of the occult. I wonder if we might discuss it over coffee perhaps, after dessert?”

Lydia perked up at the mention of the occult. Nobody had mentioned this to _her_, because of course they wouldn't. Nobody kept her in the loop. She let her fork fall to her plate with a small clatter. Nobody paid it much attention.

“Well, I'm not too up on my occult knowledge, but if your little project is artistic in anyway, I'm all ears,” Delia said, smiling brightly.

_Disaster averted_, Lydia thought. As Delia began to fuss about making whatever fancy coffee was served at dinner parties these days, Charles moved to help her clear the plates, glancing at his watch as he stood.

“Oh jeez, is it 10 already? Lydia, you should really get to bed honey, you have school tomorrow.”

“But-” Lydia protested. She had wanted to know what it was that she had wanted Delia's help with, hoping it was something arcane and cool.

“No 'buts' pumpkin,” he kissed her on the forehead as he leaned over to take her plate. “Bed, missy.”

Grudgingly she excused herself from the table and headed upstairs, glancing back at Karswell as she went. As she Changing into her pyjamas she couldn't help but wonder about what Karswell had said about Delia's sculpture. It seemed unlikely to be a coincidence, that the picture she'd spoken of was unrelated to Him, but without having seen it for herself she had no way of knowing for sure. She had no idea how long He'd been dead, but it didn't seem much of a stretch to think he'd ended up in a book somewhere down the line, especially given his whole “bio-exorcist” shtick. He'd made a- well, not a living- a career, out of frightening the living after all. She really wanted to ask Karswell about it, but- she wasn't sure if she would get the opportunity for that.

Once she'd change for bed she made her way up to the attic, knocking on the door.

“It's me,” she said after a beat.

The door creaked open of it's own accord, and she slipped inside. The attic had changed a lot since last year. After everything that happened, they'd had a talk about living (so to speak) arrangements, and decorating, and everything else that came with cohabiting with ghosts, and had had the attic renovated. The Maitlands were free to go anywhere in the house of course, but the attic was their space now, it now was decorated in much the same way the whole house had originally been, and it felt as cosy and comfortable as the Maitlands themselves did.

“Hey sweetie,” Barbara greeted her brightly, setting down the book she'd been reading. “Dinner over?”

“For me it is,” she said, flopping onto the (now dust free) sofa. “Dad sent me to bed when he realised what time it was,” she sulked, picking at a lose thread on her pyjamas. Barbara and Adam exchanged playful knowing smiles while they thought she weren't looking. It was cute, really. Lydia's lips twitched into a smile of her own.

“How was Delia's guest?” Adam asked, still leaning over the newest section of his model. He prodded a miniature tree a few millimetres to the left.

Lydia shrugged, successfully managing to pull the lose thread off her nightgown. “Nice, I guess. She's into the occult,”

She didn't miss the look they shoot each other that time either. The 'this might be something to keep an eye on' look. She sighed, rolling her eyes and joining Adam next to the model. She picked up the tiny tree that was waiting patiently to be placed on the model, turning it over for inspection, squishing the bendy plastic of the branches slightly between her fingers.

“I didn't get the chance to ask her anything about it, don't worry,” she said sardonically.

Briefly, she considered telling them what Karswell had said about the illustration in the book, but thought better of it. Maybe she could talk to Adam about it, when she could get him alone. It would make a good segue into broaching the topics they'd been avoiding around her.

“Well, don't you think you get enough spooky stuff in your life you know what with-” Adam gestured to himself.

Lydia smiled at him. “There's no such thing as too much spooky stuff,” she said, matter of factly, handing him back the little tree. “Need anymore pictures?” she asked.

“I think I'm good for now, thanks Lydia” he smiled at her, and adjusted his glasses. “Maybe early next year when they're done restoring the old church.”

“OK,” she said, hugging Adam. “Goodnight you guys.”

“Goodnight Lydia.” Adam said, tucking her head under chin and squeezing her tightly.

“Want me to brush your hair?” Barbara asked.

“Sure,” Lydia said, smiling brightly as she released Adam.

Lydia hurried back downstairs to her room, settling herself at the mirror in front of her dresser, Barbara following close behind her.

“Any new projects in the works?” Barbara asked as she picked up the hairbrush and set to work.

Lydia nodded. “I'm working on a new collage. Edgar Allan Poe. I can't get the composition right though, there's something missing. Wanna take a look at it?” she asked, starting to turn her head to look over her shoulder with the brush still caught in her hair. Barbara gently turned her back to the mirror, and Lydia could hear the smile in her voice when she replied “First thing tomorrow; your father's right, it's late, you should be in bed.”

They sat in comfortable silence as Barbara brushed her hair, and Lydia found herself nodding off in her seat, tired from dinner and lulled by the gentle movements of the brush through her hair.

Lydia's mother had done this for her sometimes, when she was younger. It was one of the things she'd missed most after she'd left; her dad was _terrible_ at brushing her hair, and it hadn't been the same when her various nannies and babysitters had done it. They were paid to be there, after all. She's never asked Delia.

One day last year Barbara had been helping her remove the multitude of pins that kept one of her more complicated hairstyles in place, and had offered to brush it out for her afterwards. It had been strange at first to sit in front of the mirror and not see Barbara reflected behind her. The floating hairbrush did look kinda funny though.

She had almost fallen completely asleep, when Barbara's soft voice startled her awake.

“I always wanted to do this for my own daughter,” she said quietly. Her voice sounded far away and Lydia wasn't sure she'd meant to let that slip out. She knew the Maitlands had wanted children. They'd never really talked about why they didn't have any, maybe they had still been trying for one before- well. Before.

And now they would never get to have any. Barbara would never get to have a daughter and would never get to brush her hair or buy her clothes or make her pancakes just the way she liked them. Barbara made _fantastic_ pancakes. Lydia watched the floating hairbrush in the mirror, her heart aching fiercely. It wasn't _fair_.

“Well,” Lydia turned to face her, and offered Barbara a shy smile. “You can do it for me. Will I do?”

“Oh, sweetie,” Barbara said, smoothing her bangs back from her forehead, her eyes only slightly misty. “You'll do just fine.”

She pressed a cold kiss to Lydia's forehead, hugging her tightly (Barbara's hugs were always slightly damp and chilly, but Lydia never minded one bit).

\------

“She seem a little down to you?” Barbara asked her husband, shutting the attic door behind her once she'd returned from brushing Lydia's hair.

Adam hummed non committally, still leaning over the model. “Maybe she's just tired. She's had a lot of homework to do lately.” He place another miniature tree on the board and finally stood back to look over his work.

“I guess,” Barbara said, settling back into the sofa an picking up her book once more. “I hope there's nothing wrong at school, we can only help her in the house.” She propped her chin on her hand and pouted down at the page without really seeing it. Lydia talked to them about school a lot, but she didn't talk about the other _kids_ at school. Barbara knew it could be hard to make friends, even harder in a new town, but she thought after a year Lydia might have made some lasting relationships with people her own age. It was starting to worry her that she never mentioned any of her piers as more than passing names, that she never brought friends over to the house. She loved Lydia, and she treasured every minute she got to spend with her, but she really did need to make connections with _living_ people.

“I know it's hard honey, being stuck here all the time, but she has Charles and Delia to help her with that. She has people looking out for her, don't worry.” Adam pressed a kiss to Barbara's cheek, sitting beside her on the sofa.

Barbara wasn't entirely convinced, but she leaned into Adam's side and tried to put it from her mind for now. She was _sure_ Lydia had something on her mind. Whatever it was she hoped she felt comfortable enough to come to her about it.

A moment later there was a curt rap on the door. Then nothing. They both waited tensely for a moment.

“Uh. Come in?” Barbara hazarded.

The Deetzes had no problems announcing themselves, briskly (Delia) or not so briskly (Charles), and neither of them usually took so long to do so. To their surprise, it was Otho whose face appeared around the door frame. His eyes did a quick sweep of the room, and apparently seeing nothing too alarming, he slipped inside. Then he caught sight of the room properly and pulled a face, looking aloof, but still clearly ill at ease.

“How you can tolerate so much wood panelling is beyond me,” he muttered to himself. “Well, to each their own I suppose.” He seemed to catch up to himself and sobered slightly, looking embarrassed. He cleared his throat awkwardly, but made no move to do anything else.

“Would you like to sit down?” Barbara offered. She was unsure where they really stood with Otho, but figured politeness was always the way to go in any situation. They hadn't really expected to see him again, and if Barbara was being honest she wasn't really sure what to think of him after the whole exorcism thing.

He glanced at the couch and it's close proximity to Adam's modelling paints. His nose wrinkled delicately.

“No, thank you,” he said, sniffing, smoothing his hands unconsciously down his tailored suit. He cleared his throat, “No, I uh, I wanted to apologise.”

The Maitlands stared at him. He took this as a sign to continue, albeit even more nervously than before.

“I didn't think- there would be any harm in it, really.” He adjusted his tie pin with fumbling fingers, avoiding both of their gazes, and instead looking at the wood panelling he disliked so. “I didn't know that- was going to happen.”

“You- you mean the exorcism?” Barbara asked, feeling she had to clarify. It was the only thing he could be talking about, but she thought it best to check.

Otho nodded. He cleared his throat awkwardly and continued to avoid looking at either of them. Both Adam and Barbara were a little stunned. It took them a moment to reply, shooting looks back and forth with half formed words dying before they left their lips, during which Otho squirmed in the silence. His eyes darted about nervously as if expecting monsters to start sprouting from the walls at any moment.

“Thank you, Otho, it means a lot that you came up here to tell us that,” Barbara said at last.

It didn't seem right to hold a grudge. They'd all started over last year, she figured Otho should be extended that courtesy too. Even though the exorcism had been the single most unpleasant experience of her life and she never ever wanted to repeat it ever again.

“Last year was- pretty crazy. And hey, it all turned out OK in the end, right?”

“Yes,” Adam agreed, finding his voice at last, taking Barbara's hand. “No hard feelings, or anything.”

He smiled encouragingly at Otho, who still looked ready to bolt at any minute. Otho cleared his throat nervously again.

“Yes, well, I won't intrude on your- time, any longer. Good evening.”

He hurried stiffly out of the attic and shut the door behind, still not quite meeting either of there eyes.

“Well,” said Adam. “I can't say I was expecting that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I really appreciate about the film is that there isn't really a clear antagonist; just lots of people with conflicting interests, and I think it makes for a very human story in the end. That's really how I came about writing that scene with Otho at the end their. When he performs the seance/exorcism he doesn't have any ill intentions towards Adam and Barbara, and he does look genuinely upset when he realises the situation is out of his control and that he might be hurting them.
> 
> I hope this doesn't come off as if I've backtracked on Lydia's character development in the film. She's definitely in a better place emotionally in this, but I want to still give her some growing to do in this fic so she's not a 100% well adjusted happy teenager.
> 
> Also, my apologies for the lack of Betelgeuse in this chapter. We'll be checking in again with him soon, don't you worry!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I know I said it would be a little while before the next update, but I had a breakthrough with this the other day and I haven't been able to leave it alone since. Ideally I would have liked to have finished the whole fic before I started posting, but I have a terrible time organising things if I don't do them in installments. I've been looking over the last two chapters and OOF they're rougher than I originally thought, so I'll be tidying them up a bit gradually. No major changes though, I don't think I put anything contradictory in those chapters that I might have to change later.
> 
> On the one hand, I feel like I should put more work into the prose here, but on the other hand...I just want to get on with it lol.
> 
> Anyway! We catch up with Betelgeuse this chapter! This is where we start to really get the plot going, I hope you enjoy it! I'm super excited to share this with you guys.

Juno frowned out of her office window, watching the processing department carry out their jobs with their usual despondency. Damn kids. When _she'd_ been in processing they hadn't even invented computers yet; they didn't know how good they had it. Betelguese had been working processing, when they first met. That was what? 500 years ago? 600? She'd lost track; time didn't mean a lot to her these days except when it came to keeping appointments.

She hadn't thought they'd really go through with it. Or at least, that Betelgeuse wouldn't pull some last minute trick and get off the hook. His sentence had been carried out months ago, now, and there'd been no sign of him since; the Bureau might have finally found a way to contain him for good. It was for the best, probably. He'd done nothing but cause trouble the last 600 years, for her most of all. But he'd kept things interesting, at the very least. She'd been here a long time, and she'd never met anyone quite like him.

“Ms. Juno?” a nervous voice called from the doorway.

“Yes, Danny? What is it?”

Her newest assistant stumbled into the room, tripping over his own feet as usual. He was carrying an armful of case files, which he narrowly avoided dropping on the way to her desk.

“Picked up your latest cases from Human Resources,” he said, holding them up to her, almost as if they were a shield.

Great. More paperwork. She was sick to death of paperwork.

“Just leave 'em on the desk,” she replied vaguely, turning back to watch the dreary work going on below.

“Uh-”

She sighed, heavily. “Yes Danny?” He was a good kid, but he was so damn _timid_. It almost made her miss having Betelgeuse as an assistant. Even if he had caused at least one administrative mess every week by dumping all of the paperwork in the trash so he wouldn't have to do any of it.

“Sorry,” he said, ducking his head. “It's just- you told me to keep you updated about the Maitland house?”

She turned back to him. She took a slow, purposeful drag of the cigarette that made Danny gulp nervously.

“Go on.”

\-----

Mirrors, Betelgeuse had decided, were the Devil's work. No wait, scratch that, if they were the Devil's work he'd probably enjoy them. Mirrors were much worse; they were the work of the _living_.

The living might not know shit about the afterlife or spectral dimensions, but that old superstition about covering up mirrors when there had been a death in the house had some truth to it. Maybe it was instinct, something hidden deep in the human soul, that had led them to the notion that a soul could be trapped inside a mirror. Because that was where Betelgeuse currently was; in a mirror. In fact, he was in _every_ mirror. The Bureau must have been royally pissed at him for them to come down on him this hard, this sort of punishment was only reserved for the most heinous of criminals. In fact, Betelgeuse wasn't sure he'd ever heard of it being _used_ before. He would be proud of himself really, if he'd had an escape plan.

He floated idly in the black void of the mirror, pondering his options. Around him were thousands of shards of light, like little broken stars; a thousand mirrors serving as windows into the living world. He could look through them if he wanted, see and hear everything that was happening on the mortal plane. It wasn't a two way street. He'd spent his entire death trying to get out of the Neitherworld, trying to get back to the land of the living, and now he was stuck watching them go about their lives, watching them eat and sleep and fuck themselves into an early grave. Watching things he could have no part in, all because he'd made one tiny, _stupid_, monumental decision a few hundred years ago.

He had to hand it to the Bureau; they really knew how to do cruel punishments.

\-----

Lydia dumped her school bag in the hall and kicked off her shoes by the door. Her negatives from the photos the other day were waiting for her on the little table. She'd dropped them off to be developed yesterday, and her dad must have gone to pick them up for her. As she picked up the envelope she realised there was a note underneath- it was from her dad.

_Last minute meeting in New York- wouldn't be back until late._ She already knew that Delia had gone to spend the weekend with Otho at Karswell's to see about this project she wanted her to work on. It was rare these days for both of them to be gone. They both did most of their work from home, unlike in New York when Delia had rented a studio and her dad had had an office building to work in. Once this would have been familiar to her, left alone (or at least with a babysitter) while they worked late. But it felt odd now, to be at home and know that neither of them where there.

“I thought I heard you come in,” Adam said, appearing at the top of the stairs and snapping her out of her thoughts.

“Guess this means you're cooking tonight?” Lydia asked, smiling and waving the note.

Adam and Barbara usually took at least one turn a week to cook for them, even though neither of them could actually eat anymore. Lydia sometimes helped out and taste tested things for them, and they'd both been teaching her how to make a few things.

Adam nodded. “Spaghetti bolognese," he answered her unasked question. "You get your negatives?”

Lydia waved the envelope at him.

“Guess that means you won't be playing sous-chef tonight?”

She grinned sheepishly at him, hiding her smile behind the envelope. “I _really_ want to see how these turned out. I took them at the old cemetery, I'll show you them once they're done!”

He pointed at her in mock sternness, face set in an exaggerated pout. “I'll hold you to that young lady. Dinner's at 6.”

“Got it,” she said, opening the door to the basement and slipping inside.

She pulled out the negatives as she went, squinting at the tiny images as she held them up to the light. She couldn't know for sure until she'd taken a contact print and then got them on the enlarger but some of them looked promising. She locked the door behind her and spent the next hour or two in the blissful red gloom of her darkroom, the smell of developing chemicals filling her nose.

Sometime later here was a light knocking on the door, followed by Barbara calling “Lydia, honey, are you in there?”

“Yeah!” Lydia called back, just as she was setting her latest effort into the water bath to rinse.

“I thought I heard you come in earlier,” Barbara said, appearing through the door. “Oh, are these the ones you took the other day? How are they looking?”

“Let's find out,” Lydia said, as she switched the red light off, the room briefly black, before she hit the switch for the regular bulb.

Blinking at the sudden change, Lydia and Barbara headed to the drying area set up against the wall to observe her work. They were a little noisy, but Lydia was pretty proud of them. The light had been good for black and white photography that day. With a few more filter adjustments she thought she had some of best work here. Maybe even good enough to add to her portfolio.

“You're so talented Lydia, I wouldn't even know where to begin with something this,” Barbara said, looking at the earlier photos from the reel. They were ones she'd taken around town earlier that month; just for technical practice, really.

“It's pretty easy once you have the basics down,” Lydia said with a shrug. “I can show you sometime, if you want?”

Barbara didn't reply, and Lydia turned to find her frowning at the photographs she'd taken of the cemetery.

“Are these from the old cemetery?” she asked, something in her voice that Lydia couldn't place.

“Yeah, I took them yesterday. I'm going to use them for my collage. What do you think?”

Again, Barbara said nothing. And then;

“I didn't realise you'd been there. Guess you have an instinct for finding this kinda stuff, huh?”

Lydia laughed. “I wish. Adam told me about it.”

“He did?” Barbara's mouth thinned.

“Yeah?” Lydia grew suddenly nervous. Barbara rarely looked so serious.“What? What's the matter?”

“Oh, nothing, just thinking, you know?” Barbara said, shaking her head.

She smiled, but there was still a tightness in the set of her eyes that Lydia had never seen before.

“Well, you'd best finish up in here it's almost 6; dinner will be ready soon.”

She vanished back through the door leaving Lydia in the brightly lit darkroom with nothing but her thoughts and photographs of graves that held no answers for her.

\----

Betelgeuse didn't know all that much about how mirror dimensions worked, except that they did. The dead could travel through mirrors because they had no reflections. The space where their reflection should be was empty, void, and with a little tampering it was possible to trap a spirit inside a mirror indefinitely. But he figured, hey? How much different could it be to any other dimensional plane he'd been to? So, he didn't let himself get too worried. You know, little time spent floating about, spying on a few breathers, recuperate, it was practically a holiday. Except that he'd been in there _months_ and he hadn't regained any of his juice. There seemed to be something that not only kept ghosts _in_, but kept spiritual energy _out_. Still, he wasn't going to give up so easily. There was always a loophole, he just had to find it. So what if that was proving more difficult than he originally anticipated? So what if being alone with his thoughts so much was slowly driving out of his mind? He was the ghost with the most, _no-one_ could get the better of him. He'd come up with something sooner or later.

He had to.

\----

Lydia emerged from the darkroom blinking a few minutes later, trying to stifle a yawn. She was glad it was Friday tomorrow; something about this week had dragged, and she was looking forward to a weekend where she could do nothing. Her next homework assignments weren't due until the following Wednesday, and she was going to lose no sleep in leaving them until the Tuesday night to complete. As she came up the steps from the basement she could hear Adam and Barbara in the kitchen, and she hurried up the last few steps,, her stomach grumbling as she followed the smell of tomato sauce.

“Why did you tell Lydia about that old cemetery?” Barbara was saying, vehemently.

Lydia stopped, foot resting lightly on the second to last step. She frowned. It sounded like-

“I thought she'd like it-”

“Don't you think she gets enough of that at home?”

They were _arguing_.

“I was just trying to be nice, Barbara, I didn't think of it like that-”

Lydia shrunk back from the door. She'd _never_ heard them argue before.

“Well, maybe you should have!”

Not even a little bit. And now they were arguing about her. She swallowed thickly, guilt tasting sour on her tongue. Most of Adam's reply was lost in the clattering of pans.

“-regret staying?”

“No! Of course I don't, but-”

Clatter, clatter. Plates this time. Any minute now one of them would be coming to see where she was.

“-I just don't understand why you're so upset about this-” clatter, clatter “-she's literally living with ghosts, I don't think-”

She took a shaky breath, fighting the sudden stiffness in her chest, the way her ribs seemed like iron around her lungs, and took a tentative step backwards. She took another, and another, praying the stairs wouldn't start creak on her descent; then once she'd made it halfway back down, she ran noisily back up and into the kitchen, not looking at either of them as she entered.

“Ah! There's my favourite taste-tester! Barbara said as she spotted her, all traces anger gone from her voice as if it had never been there. “Give this a try and see what you think?”

Lydia hoped her answering smile was convincing.

\-----

Betelgeuse wasn't sure how long he'd been in mirror now. He'd lost his watches somewhere inside the sandworm, so he had no idea what time it was in any dimension, let alone what month, or day, or even year.He'd gone through a hundred different petty revenge plans for the Maitlands (none of them remotely satisfying enough to last him more than a few minutes of daydream time), he'd thought over every trick he'd ever learned about dimensions and spiritual energy so many times he'd lost count, and not a _single_ _one_ of them had worked. _Nothing_ he'd come up with had had any success. He'd tried discorporating, and all that had happened was that he got a headache. Didn't even end up on Saturn or anything. He'd tried forcing his way out but it was literally like trying to fight air; whatever barrier kept him in didn't react to his presence at all. He didn't even have anything useful with him that he might be able to use; all he had in his pockets was the packet of cigarettes that Juno had given him, and a few stray beetles he was saving for later. He thought mournfully of the years worth of junk he'd accumulated in there over the centuries, now probably dumped down the nearest Neitherworld trash chute after they'd made him empty his pockets before carrying out his sentence. Trying to smash the mirror from the inside hadn't done anything either, there wasn't anything for him _to_ smash.

After a while, with nothing else to occupy himself with, he found himself thinking about Her. He couldn't even remember Her name, or Her face. He'd spent years sanding it from surface of his mind, abrading it with cheap scams and cheaper hook ups, but he'd never been able to get rid of Her completely. Even after all this time, he could still remembered the feel of her hands, the press of her lips, the sound of laughter in the garden where they had hidden behind the rosebushes. He wondered sometimes where in the Neitherworld she was. He'd never seen her, not in all the hundreds of years he'd been dead, but then again, given his...position, he wasn't likely to have. She could be anywhere. She might not even be _in_ the Neitherworld, she could have moved onto any number of heavenly dimensions that were out there. If she even managed to get into one, that is. He hoped she hadn't. She didn't deserve it.

He scrubbed a hand roughly through his hair as if he could dislodge the thoughts from his brain.  
God, this was _insufferable_. How did people do this much _thinking_? He hadn't bothered with self reflection (ha) for years, and now it was all he had to occupy his time with. He turned over the box of cigarettes Juno had given him. He'd yet to light one; they had to last him a long time, after all. _Fuck it_, he thought, pulling one out. He flicked his thumb like a lighter, lighting the cigarette on the sickly little flame it produced. He took a deep drag, the ectoplasmic smoke welcome in what was left of his lungs. He blew it out in a blue grey stream into the void of the mirror, where it withered away into nothing, as if it had never existed at all.

_Christ_.

If he didn't get a distraction soon he was going to go insane, and then when his sentence was up (2000 years on good behaviour) the Bureau was going to have to deal with a crazy convicted criminal and then where would they be? Huh? He fumed quietly to himself about the _injustice_ of it all.

\-----

Dinner was awkward, and not only because she was the only one eating. She could feel the undercurrent of tension between Adam and Barbara, and she had no idea how she was supposed to navigate it. Her parents hadn't argued before their divorce. That had been one of the worst parts of it, ironically. They'd just seemed to grow gradually further and further apart, until eventually they hadn't even shared a bedroom anymore. And then Lydia's mom had packed her things away, one by one into the moving truck, and she'd moved out. At first Lydia would sleep over, maybe one or two nights a week, which had dwindled into just day visits, and then, finally, no visits of all. And then her mom had moved away. She was starting her own business, her own funeral directory, somewhere halfway across the country. And then she was gone, just like that. Like she'd never even been there. That had been 5 years ago. Lydia hadn't seen her since.

If Adam and Barbara noticed her mood they said nothing. In fact, they were unusually quiet themselves, which did nothing to help calm Lydia's spiralling thoughts. She swirled spaghetti onto her fork and tried to summon up her appetite, but it was choked by the anxious mess still resting heavily on her chest.

_Of course, Adam and Barbara couldn't get divorced, _she told herself. They were dead, they couldn't exactly hire lawyer and go to court. At least, she didn't think so. Though as far as she gathered the afterlife did seem to involve an abnormal amount of paperwork. Maybe they _could_ get divorced. 'Til death do us part', after all.

She was just getting ready to excused herself, spaghetti only half eaten, when the wall to her left began to inch slowly outwards. Lambent green light spilling onto the kitchen floor from the newly formed door- Juno stepped out.

“Juno!” Barbara exclaimed. “What are you doing here? We're not due a house call, are we?” She turned to Adam for confirmation, but he just shrugged, looking as puzzled as his wife did.

“No, not for another decade or so.” She said, looking around the kitchen disinterestedly. “We've been getting some strange readings from around here.”

Lydia frowned. “Readings?”

Juno turned to her then, as if only just noticing her. “Spiritual energy,” the old ghost said, waving a wrinkled hand dismissively through the air, the cigarette between her fingers leaving a wispy trail of smoke behind at the motion. “We have a department to monitor that sort of thing. It's taken them a while to pin it down, but the readings seemed to be focused on this area.”

“Here? As in, our house? I don't understand,” said Adam.

“Well quite frankly neither do we, that's why we're investigating. They haven't manage to locate the source exactly, but after the...trouble, you all had last year, I figured you were worth checking up on. Normally one of the department clerks would handle this, but I made a point to stop by in their stead. I felt like I owed it you to look into it myself.”

“Owed it to us? What do you mean?” Lydia asked.

Juno turned to her again, giving her a scrutinising look before she spoke. Lydia got the impression she didn't often talk to living people these days.

“My former assistant,” she said, wryly. “I can't help but feel partly responsible for him, even if we haven't been... on speaking terms, in a couple of centuries.”

“Oh,” Lydia said, having forgotten that she and Him knew each other. It was another thing Adam and Barbara had only mentioned in passing. “Were you close?” She asked, before she could think better of it. It wasn't any of her business, really, but with Juno here it would be harder for Barbara to steer the conversation away from a topic like this. It was a chance she wasn't going to pass up.

Indeed, Juno seemed surprised she'd asked, blinking at her through her halo of smoke.

“Lydia, I don't think that's-” Barbara started, but Juno waved her off.

“We were- on better terms, once,” was all she said. Her voice seemed steady, but Lydia was sure she could see a lingering sadness behind her eyes.

“Well, I can't think of anything that's been different around here,” Barbara said at last.

“No signs of anything...unusual?” Juno said, squinting at Lydia ever so slightly.

“Well, maybe if you told us what we were supposed to be noticing?” Adam asked. He moved to stand by Barbara and Lydia didn't miss the slight distance he left between them.

“Oh, trust me, readings like these, you'd notice. Real weird energy, the clerks haven't seen anything like it.”

“Maybe the readings are wrong?” Barbara suggested with a small shrug.

“Energy doesn't lie, Mrs Maitland.” Juno said blandly. “And you, Miss Deetz?” she asked, turning to Lydia. “You noticed anything...unusual, around here lately?”

Lydia shook her head. Juno blew out a cloud of smoke, eyeing her like she didn't quite believe that.

“Right,” Juno said, flatly. She took another deep drag of her cigarette. Most of it escaped through her neck when she tried to exhale, clouding the air around her further. “Well, you know how to reach me,” she said, turning to address the Maitlands this time. “If anything changes, we'll know. ” And with that incredibly ominous statement, she turned back through the door, which swung slowly closed behind her.

\-----

“Wonder what that was all about.” Adam said, shaking water off his hands as he finished up the dishes. “You know, with Juno?”

Lydia had excused herself shortly after her impromptu visit, and had already gone to bed. She hadn't even finished her dinner, the leftovers of which were now sadly ensconced in a tub in the refrigerator.

“She's always so vague!” Barbara said exasperatedly, throwing the dish towel onto the counter with a damp 'thwap'. She folded her arms huffily and scowled at the floor.

Adam smiled to himself at the sight. Barbara could get very...passionate, about things. It was one of the things he loved most about her.

“Hey, I'm sorry about getting snappy with you earlier,” she said, still looking at the floor. “I'm just worried, about her, you know?”

He dried his hands on the damp dish towel and took Barbara's in his own.

“It's OK,” he said, smiling softly at her. “I get why you're concerned, but if it's really worrying you that much, don't you think you should tell Charles and Delia?”

Barbara sighed, leaning into him and thumping her forehead into his shoulder.

“I don't _know_ what to do,” she whined.

He couldn't help but smile at the muffled sound of her voice as she squished her face into his collar.

For a long moment they stood together like that in the kitchen, and Adam could almost believe the last year was a dream, that they'd never gone out to the store that day and never made it home alive. That they still had a chance of starting a family of their own. He tucked his face into Barbara's hair and squeezed his eyes shut, and let himself pretend, for just a moment.

“We'll figure something out,” he said, at last, letting the fantasy go. “All we can do is be there for her, if she needs us.”

\-----

Eventually Betelgeuse got tired of lurking in the mirrors of strip clubs, casinos, and the occasional department store changing room. There was only so much entertainment to be found spying on the living, after all, especially when they all insisted on doing things that the dead couldn't. He let his mind drift, the mirrors slipping past him, like he was just flicking through TV channels, uncaring of what was beyond them. He gazed idly out of the mirrors, rubbing at the phantom ache in his neck, letting the mirrors drift around him, in hope of a distraction from his thoughts.

And eventually, he found one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't set out to give Lydia anxiety issues, but here we are!  
I actually meant to add in the first chapter that my headcanon for Betelgeuse's multiple watches is so he can keep track of different timezones but I forgot to put it in. Oops.
> 
> Betelgeuse didn't end up featuring heavily in this chapter, but don't worry. I have BIG plans for him ;)
> 
> I also had to restrain myself from adding unnecessary amounts of detail about Lydia developing photos because I took photography in college.
> 
> Again, if there's any glaring errors or grammatical issues feel free to point them out! I'm pretty much yeeting these chapters onto the internet with minimal proofing out of sheer excitement, so they're definitely not perfect, but I'm having too much fun to lose much sleep over it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's read/kudos'd/commented so far! My initial plan was to focus mostly on Lydia on Betelgeuse, but I realised while trying to write this chapter that there's really too much plot to rest the whole narrative on their shoulders, so I'm expanding the cast a little bit! Lydia and Betelgeuse are still the emotional/character driven core of the story though!
> 
> I'm also realising this fic is probably going to have way more chapters than I anticipated, but I don't suppose anyone is going to complain about that
> 
> I'm starting to slip in some worldbuilding in this chapter to set things up for later, I hope it's not too confusing to read! I didn't want to start infodumping chunks of it randomly into the text so I'm trying to explain things as they become full relevant. I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Juno sat at her desk. She didn't really do much else these days. The Maitlands' case files sat in front of her. So did Betelgeuse's.

When Danny had come to tell her about the strange energy readings she'd been sure that he'd managed to wiggle out of his punishment somehow, that once she stepped into the Maitland-Deetz household she'd find him lurking about, ready to cause trouble.

But no.

There hadn't seemed to be anything out of place once she'd arrived, nothing unusual she could sense. She didn't trust the Maitlands to know if anything was out of the ordinary, they hadn't been dead nearly long enough for that, but Juno had. She'd been around a long enough to know how to spot an unusual aura, but she hadn't felt a thing. Just the usual low level hum of two ghosts and one human girl. It was bothering her more than it ought to. This wasn't her problem, it fell way outside her jurisdiction.

Apparently the Department of Earthly and Unearthly Energy Signals had been trying to track down this specific energy signature for _years_. They had no idea what it was, or where it was coming from, but in the last year it seemed to have stayed in one place, long enough for them to narrow down their search to the living world. In Winter River, Connecticut.

It was probably Betelgeuse's fault somehow, whatever it was. Most things in Juno's afterlife these days were. She checked her watch. 03:26 PM DeadTime. She was due to have finished 2 hours ago, and here she was eating into her day off by sitting here looking over old files. She hadn't worked overtime in, what? A few thousand years? Not since she realised it didn't make any difference. She still hadn't balanced up, and she was beginning to think she never would. Betelgeuse had never balanced up either, but that didn't really surprise her. He'd stopped trying a few centuries ago, if he'd ever really seriously tried at all.

She pulled the files over to her tiredly, ready for one last look over before she called it quits. Betelgeuse's file was a mess. It had been through just about every case worker in the Building, some of them twice, including one who, notably, had tried to set in on fire just so they wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. The edges were still singed. She knew it's contents well, just as she knew the ghost it belonged to. He'd been dead for 600 years, only a fraction of the time she'd been dead herself.

To Juno, he was still just a stupid kid. A stupid kid who had somehow managed to break every rule in the Bureau's books, and some of those in the Universe's as well. No wonder the PTB were out to get him.

But despite all this, she missed him. Despite their...less than amicable parting, despite the headaches he'd given her, she missed the manic energy he seemed to carry with him anywhere. Even when she'd pulled him out of the Basement 500 years ago he'd had a glint in his eye that the other Suicide's hadn't. A barely restrained mania that had reminded her of a rabid dog just begging to be let off it's leash. And, foolishly, she'd convinced the Bureau to do just that. That was probably why they kept giving her so much paperwork to do.

She looked at the mnemograph of Betelgeuse in the file. Every ghost had one, even him. A photograph constructed my memories, a relic of how every ghost had looked while they had been alive. He looked so terribly _normal_, it threw her every time she saw it. His hair was only slightly less unruly than it was now, but it still looked like he hadn't bothered to brush it in a week. There was an alarming calmness in his expression, something resigned that seemed to have died with him. A tiredness that spoke of the fatal decision that awaited him. She flipped it open, skipping over the sparse early files from when he'd managed to stay out of trouble.

The information became denser as it went on, containting charge sheets for things like theft of office supplies, misuse of another individual's body parts, general indecency; all things she was familiar with.

She reached the rough hundred year mark- and frowned. There was something missing.

She knew that Betelgeuse wasn't his birth name. That didn't really matter; people changed their names all the time in the Neitherworld, but what was odd was that she couldn't find the paperwork for it. Juno couldn't really remember ever calling him anything else but Betelgeuse. She had a long memory but when you've been dead since before the fall of Rome, you tended to cut yourself a little slack for being forgetful. But there should be _paperwork_. She shuffled through the papers again in case she'd missed it, but there was nothing; not even a gap where it should be. His file said Betelgeuse, so he must have had it officially changed, through the proper channels, but there wasn't anything to back it up.

The Bureau offices were full paper, and things got misplaced every day. Not surprising, really, when your entire staff consisted of people who had taken their own lives; that kind of mentality didn't exactly result in workers who cared about doing a good job. But Juno cared. This job was all she had, and God (or whoever) damn it she was going to do it as best she could.

She shoved Betelgeuse's file under her arm and strode out of her office. The skeletons in the bullpen were still click-clacking dutifully away as she passed. Poor bastards. Worn down to the bone; literally. Several twisting expressionist corridors later she arrived at the double doors of Human Resources, and stepped through into the reception area.

Lana was on desk duty today. She was taking a call, scribbling in her notepad and nodding to whoever was on the phone. Her low cut bangs bobbed with the movement, and if you looked closely you could see the little hole they concealed where she had put a bullet through her brain in the summer of 1969. She'd missed the moon landing by two weeks, and her 33rd birthday by two days. She always wore a neat little floral bandanna over her hair to cover the gaping exit wound in the back of her head.

Juno leaned against the counter, waiting until whoever had Lana on the phone to free her from her torment. After a few minutes Lana set the receiver down with a quiet click that sounded painfully loud in the hush of the room. Then she sat up straight, heaved out a breath she didn't need, and turned to Juno, plastering on a wide customer service appropriate smile.

“Hey Juno,” she said, brightly, but with far too many teeth.

Juno winced in sympathy. “You look beat kid. When's your next break?”

“Not till next week,” Lana replied, sagging slightly in her seat, false smile drooping sadly off her face.

Juno tsked. “They work you too hard down here. It's not like we're short staffed.”

Lana just shrugged in a 'what can you do?' kind of gesture. Juno saw it every single day in the office. Except on Betelgeuse. He'd never let them grind him down. He'd ground _back_.

“Well, what can I do for you? Business, I assume?”

Juno rarely made social calls. She slipped Betelgeuse's stained and singed file onto the desk, sliding it towards the receptionist. Lana pulled a face at the state of it, pinching the cover between her thumb and forefinger, as if she expected it to be contaminated (it very well might be, after Betelgeuse had touched it) and peaking inside.

“I thought they'd finally managed to put him away for good?” She asked, wrinkling her nose as she flicked open the file properly.

“Seems like it,” Juno said, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “But it looks like there's a file missing, see? Name change; must be from, I dunno, about 1400 give or take a few decades?”

Lana nodded, inspecting the mnemograph curiously. “You know, I hear about him a lot but this is the first time I've ever seen him? Looks kinda sad,” she said, frowning at the picture.

Juno scoffed. “Not anymore he doesn't. He's been dead for six centuries. Lotta things change in that time. You'll find that out, if you stick around for that long.”

Lana laughed. “God, I hope I'm not still here in six hundred years.” She placed the photo delicately back in the file and flipped it shut again. “What's it matter now though? About his name papers? He's not even listed as an open case anymore,” she said as she checked the computer.

Lana loved the computers. When she had been alive they still needed entire rooms just for their processors. Now she could have one right at her desk that took up no more room than a TV set.

Juno leaned over the desk to glance at the screen and sure enough, Betelgeuse's profile listed his case as [NO ACTION REQUIRED].

“Call it personal business, then,” Juno said, exhaling smoke into the air. “I don't like loose ends, especially when he's involved.”

Lana shrugged, still tapping away at the computer. “Your workload,” she said. “Think it'll win you brownie points with the PTB?” She added slyly, with a conspiratorial smile.

Juno laughed bitterly. She envied the naivety of the young. “Honey, I've been dead since before they invented Jesus. If brownie points mattered jack shit to those bozos Upstairs, I would have been out of here a long time ago.”

“I'll check it out for you, Juno.” Lana said quietly. She slipped the file under the desk and turned back to the keyboard, her previous enthusiasm all but evaporated.

The reminder that they were both in this for the long haul had put kind of a damper on the mood.

\----

Charles didn't get home that night until 11:03pm. He rubbed his eyes, exhausted by the long work hours on top of the long drive. He could have stayed in New York overnight, but honestly he didn't feel comfortable leaving Lydia alone in a haunted house, even one where they knew the haunters. If snakes were going to start crawling out the woodwork again he'd rather be there so they could eat him instead of Lydia.

The kitchen light was still on as he pulled up to the house. He hoped that there were leftovers. He would never dare tell Delia that he preferred the Maitlands cooking to hers. He found Adam and Barbara sitting at the kitchen table when he went in, heads bent together and looking a little too serious.

“Not interrupting anything, am I?” He said, as he strode into the kitchen, not missing the way their conversation ceased when they noticed him.

Barbara shook her head. “No- just talking. How was your meeting?”

Well, whatever. It was their business, whatever it was.

“Good,” Charles said, rubbing his hands together. “Very good. I should have some exciting news to share soon, if everything goes well. Lydia in bed?”

He opened the fridge to discover the leftover spaghetti Barbara had saved for him._ Oh, thank God._

“Yeah, she seemed a little tired,” Adam said thoughtfully, and then added “Juno stopped by.”

“She did? Isn't she usually busy?” Charles asked in surprise, as he put the spaghetti in the microwave and tried to remember which buttons to press. It was a little late for a full meal but he hadn't eaten for hours, and after the day he'd had he figured he'd earned it.

“She said there'd been- what was it? Strange spiritual energy readings from the house, or something like that. She stopped by to ask us if we'd seen anything unusual lately.”

“What, more unusual than ghosts?” he said, laughing uneasily. He watched the plate spin monotonously round and round in the microwave as the counter ticked rhythmically down. Nice and boring and predictable. If only life could be a little more like a microwave sometimes.

“Ghosts aren't really that unusual when you are one, Charles.” Adam said, not unkindly.

“I guess,” he conceded, not breaking eye contact with the slowly rotating plate of spaghetti.

If he was being honest, Charles still found it a little strange to be living with ghosts. Though he had to admit, the Maitlands had been good for Lydia. She'd never been quite the same since her mother left, and Charles had never been able to figure out what she needed. Whatever it was Delia _hadn't_ been it. Coming out here had been as much for her as it was for him. At least that seemed to have helped her in the end, even if it had been because the previous occupants had died and not because the change of scenery had done them any good. The beeping of the microwave broke him out of his thoughts.

“These- whadyacall'ums- readings,” he said, pulling out the plate carefully and sitting at the table with the Maitlands. “You don't think it's- oh thanks-” He he took the offered cutlery from Barbara. “Uh- _you know._” He looked between them uncomfortably, hoping they would know what he was getting at. He didn't like thinking about...last year.

“Juno said he'd been dealt with,” Barbara said with a shrug, propping her chin up on a thoughtful hand. “But she said she wasn't allowed to disclose his sentence to us. We didn't even see him when they had us testify.”

Charles blinked. “They have non-disclosure agreements in the afterlife?” The idea seemed so absurd. But then again, he'd read the handbooks, or tried to. They really had been very little help; the writing was so needlessly convoluted it was hard to make heads or tails of it without sitting down and making notes about the damn thing.

Barbara shrugged again, this time with an added eye roll. “Apparently,”she said. Clearly she didn't agree with the way things were run over there either.

“Don't you think Juno would have told us if there was a risk of him coming back?” Adam said. “I mean, she did say she was here in person because she felt responsible for him.”

“Guess we'll just have to keep an eye on things,” Barbara said, pushing the salt shaker absently towards Charles.

_Great_, thought Charles as he started on the spaghetti. _Like they hadn't had enough of this last year._

_\-----_

Lydia awoke next morning with the phantom feeling of water filling her lungs. She gasped for breath, relieved when it came easily, drawing in as many lungfuls of air as she could to ease the tightness in her chest. The nightmare, _again_. She groaned, throwing an arm across her sweaty forehead, her heart still thumping uncomfortably hard behind her ribs.

She'd thought she was _over_ this. They'd been a less frequent lately. She'd let her guard down. _Stupid_. She threw the covers back with more force than was necessary, stalking across the room to sit at her dressing table and pulling open the drawer. Inside was a little velvet bag that had once contained a bracelet that Delia had given her two birthdays ago. She started undoing the drawstring with fumbling fingers, only to drop the bag on the floor– and send a small, gold ring tumbling out onto the carpet.

She blinked at it for a moment, trying to remember where she'd gotten it from. Oh. Of course. She'd forgotten she even still had it. It was the only thing that hadn't vanished afterwards. The dress had evaporated within minutes, the odd little priest had disappeared back into the fireplace, which had in turn warped back into it's usual shape behind him. The hole left by the sandworm unfortunately _hadn't_ vanished, and her father had paid extra for a builder who wouldn't ask awkward questions to come in and fix it. But the ring hadn't gone anywhere. No one had noticed, not even Lydia, until she finally went to bed, exhaustion weighing on her. She'd been quite startled when she did notice it. It was like she hadn't even been able to feel it for the last few hours.

She thought about this as she reached to pick it up. She must have shoved it in the drawer to deal with later and then just forgotten all about it. She turned it over in her hands for a moment, reacquainting herself with it's crude craftsman ship. It was a plain gold band, a little tarnished with age. On the outside, there were some inexpertly carved patterns that might have been stars, but mostly just looked like wonky scratches. Inside there was an inscription which read;

_'My gift is myselfe’._

She turned it over in her fingers, rubbing a thumb over the uneven shape. It was the only real physical evidence she had, she realised with a start. Without this, last year might not even have happened.

She slipped it back into the bag for now, and turned her attention to the other item she kept hidden in there, folded up as tightly as she could get it. She unfolded the paper until it revealed a phone number that she knew by heart. She didn't even have to look at it anymore, and so she didn't. She unfolded the paper some more, smoothing out the crumpled edges of her would be suicide note.

She probably shouldn't have kept it. She doesn't even want to think about what would happen if the Maitlands or her parents found it. But it was a strangely lonely feeling, to know that she was the only one who knew how close she'd come to going through with it, and if the note were gone she might...

She almost wanted to tell them, just to have it out in the open. _Almost_.

\-----

Betelgeuse squinted down at the note she was holding to no avail. Reading in the mirror world was hard enough without turning things upside down, and eventually, he gave up and just floated himself upside down for a better view. Ah. Suicide note. Made sense, after all, she had told him she wanted 'in'. Stupid kid didn't know what that even _meant_.

He watched her curiously as she stared vacantly at the note, not even moving her eyes to read it over. She looked tired, he noticed. Well, even more so than he remembered from last year.

“Lydia!” her father called from outside the door, and she jumped, fumbling with the note. “Get ready for school, you'll be late!”

“Yeah, I'm coming!” She called back, annoyance leaking into her tone. She took one last lingering look at the note before folding the paper neatly along the well worn creases, and slipping it into the drawer of her dressing table.

As she stood she did a double take at the mirror and for a brief moment, Betelgeuse could have sworn she was looking right at him. But then she blinked and the moment passed. She turned away from the mirror, as she headed for the door and out of Betelgeuse's sight. Must have been a fluke. No one could see him in here, he thought bitterly. That note had looked old; clearly she'd been thinking about this for a long time. Betelgeuse snorted derisively to himself, twisting in the black void until he was right-side up again. She was in for a shock if she went through with it, that was for sure. The Neitherworld was not a kind place for suicides.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited this chapter while half asleep so I hope there's no glaring inconsistencies ^^;
> 
> I've been working on solidifying the plot details for this story, and there's a chance that I might split it into two parts to make it manageable. My rough framework originally had 20 chapters but it's looking like it might be closer to 30 in total, possibly more depending on how the pacing goes. I think splitting it into a kind of Act 1 and Act 2 might make it easier for me, but I'll have to see how it goes!
> 
> I hope my writing for Betelgeuse is OK! He can be a little difficult to write for the movie because so much of his dialogue was improvised; he's so chaotic!
> 
> Also I made an edit to the previous chapter; Juno should have said '1400' instead of '1700'.

When Charles Deetz had reopened the store after the untimely death of the Maitlands, Winter River had breathed a collective sigh of relief. It wouldn't have been right to close it, they had all said, Adam had loved that store. But Charles Deetz was a city boy, and one in real estate to boot; it was his property now, legally he could do as he pleased with it, and no amount of sentimentality on their part could change that. So they'd whispered behind their hands as he ruined all the good work the Maitlands had done on their home, watched as construction vehicles roared up and down the drive for months, and said nothing when the house became an eyesore for the rest of the community. And then, quite suddenly, they took down the strange extensions. They extended the porch instead, which looked much more palatable than the bizarre half finished construct they had built prior. And then Charles had bought the store, and they had all braced themselves to go through the whole process again.

In the end all he'd done was hire a boy from the next town over and keep the little shop running

No one had really understand why Charles Deetz had chosen to do this. He was a rich man, after all, a small previously family owned hardware store in a small town would turn no real profit; it's annual income was probably pocket change to him. And yet, there the store still stood, unchanged, except for the memorial photograph of the Maitlands on the wall behind the counter. Mr. Deetz's daughter had put it there after the store reopened, and everyone agreed it was a nice gesture; after all, she'd never even met the Maitlands. _What a sweet girl _they had said, though they all agreed she could use a little more sun.

The boy from the next town over that Charles Deetz had hired was called Izzy Hathaway, and he whistled to himself as he unlocked the store that morning. The old barber next door greeted him, and Izzy smiled politely back, slipping inside before he could get trapped in conversation (he'd learned that lesson the hard way). Izzy had been working at the hardware store for just shy of a year now. His parents still weren't too happy with his choice, but at least he was doing _something_, they would say.

Izzy wasn't a lazy person, in fact he worked very hard at whatever he did, he just lacked..._drive_. At 7 he'd wanted to be an astronaut, but at 7 everyone wanted to be an astronaut, so he hadn't thought himself to be particularly special. Even when his parents and teachers had discovered he had a remarkable head for figures he didn't get much farther than drawing pictures of himself in a rocketship and watching Star Trek reruns. They got him advanced work, a private math tutor, but by 8 and a half he'd lost interest in being an astronaut and wanted to be a gardener instead. They kept the math tutor, just in case. His gardening phase ended after a handful of planting sessions when he realised how much he disliked having dirt under his fingernails. At 12 he wanted to be an accountant, because it seemed like it would be easy, what with it involving numbers, but then he realised how much paperwork and sitting behind desks and things it involved, and he changed his mind after only a month. In fact he changed career dreams every few months after that, right up until he entered high school. At that point his parents tried to get him to think _seriously_ about what he wanted to do. They would support him, whatever it was, they said, just _please, please pick something Izem, that's all we're asking._

Izzy did not pick something. He took naps in class and read through whatever books the school library had available, slotting the information away in his brain just for the fun of it. He rarely had to check books out, so it went unnoticed by the staff and by his parents, that he had in fact read every single book in the library. He liked to read, so it never occurred to him that this might be unusual. He graduated high school without a single career goal in mind, and ignored all the college applications his parents left lying surreptitiously around the house. He didn't _want_ to go to college. He didn't _want_ to pick a job and then spend the rest of his life doing the same thing over and over.

If Izzy was being honest, he didn't have any grand ambitions. They were overrated, if you asked him. They made good reading material for biographies and noble adventures, but they got in the way of important things, like living your life.

He'd applied for the job at the store after seeing it advertised, just to give himself some extra money and to keep his parents from worrying themselves into an early grave. He was hired immediately, and better still he found he _liked_ working at the hardware store. It was quiet, and tidy, and everyone who came in knew his name and wished him 'good morning' or 'good afternoon'. He could read as much as he wanted in between customers, and the stock rarely needed tending to, and it paid remarkably well.

Izzy had thought he was from a small town, but Winter River was smaller still, and it wasn't long before his customers picked on his love of reading. Soon people began to lend him books. Even Mr. Deetz noticed and started to bring him things; apparently the Maitlands had left a lot of books behind, and he thought Izzy might like to read them. Sometimes his daughter would give him horror paper backs to read too. He became so known for his love of reading that people began to leave him books with the barber next door when he wasn't in, which the old man wasn't too impressed with. Which was why there was now a little basket attached to the door, underneath the letter box. People dropped books off for him to read, sometimes just to borrow, sometimes to keep. He never needed to read a book twice to remember it, but sometimes the motions of reading were pleasant to revisit all the same.

Izzy pulled today's books out of the basket, leaned against the counter, and began to read.

\-----

Betelgeuse decided to stick around the Deetz household for the next couple of days. Call it curiosity; they were the only living people he'd met in the last- what? Decade? Two? And since he was here, he figured he might as well see what they'd been up to, since their last encounter. It wasn't like it mattered where he went, really. _Fuck, 1999 more years of this shit?_ He thought bitterly. He itched for another cigarette, but decided to hold off on eating into his supply for now. He watched idly as Chuck and Lydia went about their lives, blissfully ignorant of the shit they would have to deal with once they were dead, and completely unappreciative of what they had in life. God they could be doing literally anything in the world right now, but here they were doing homework and taxes and watching shitty daytime television. Jesus. Life was wasted on them.

_You wasted yours too, if you remember._

_That was different, _he told himself. _That was Her fault_. Everything since he'd been dead was Her fault.

The other one (what was her name? Donna, Della? Delia!) didn't seem to be around, but he didn't give it much thought. He couldn't see the Maitlands, they no longer had reflections, after all, so if none of the Deetzes were around he never had any idea where they were in the house. Unless, of course, they happened to picked something up within view of a mirror. So far he'd seen a floating newspaper, several books, a laundry basket, and a stack of calypso records pass through the living room. The golden couple were still as dull as ever it seemed, and after almost three days of loitering around in the Deetz-Maitland's mirrors, his interest was beginning to wane. They were so dreadfully _boring_. So _normal_. Even after so long trapped in the mirror (over a year, from what he'd managed to glean from overheard conversations) he knew there were better avenues of entertainment out there for him. He could be hanging out in a one way mirror watching police interrogations right now. It would be more interesting than _this_. He peered out of the mirror in Lydia's dressing table. She was sitting on her bed surrounded by scraps of paper, scissors in hand. He watched her idly for a moment, but she did nothing particularly interesting or entertaining.

His thoughts flickered back to the note she'd been holding just a few days ago. He'd never left a note; he hadn't had anything to write it on. Besides, the ring he'd left had probably been note enough. At least he hope it had. _God_, he hoped it had. He chased that thought away, and it scuttled back off into the recesses of his mind like a particularly resilient spider that wouldn't go crunch no matter how hard he stomped on it. Part of him couldn't help but wonder if she'd go through with it. She was a gloomy kid, so he wouldn't put it past her, but she was also from a rich family, with a step mom to boot, which was a classic formula for the attention seeking type.

Lydia continued to cut up her photographs, unaware of his scrutiny.

Snip snip.

Snip snip snip.

Snip.

_Screw this, _he thought, rolling his eyes. He had _way_ better uses for his time. It wasn't his problem, whatever the kid decided to do. People killed themselves everyday, and they had for thousands of years. It didn't make her special. He was just about to let the mirror drift by him in favour of more interesting viewing material, when Lydia let out a dramatic groan, dropping the scissors on the bed.

“God, I wish I could just turn off my brain for _5_ minutes,” she said, flopping face-down into the mattress with a dull 'thunk'.  
Betelguese snorted. "You and me both kid."  
Lydia jerked upright, sending paper scattering everywhere. "Who said that?" she demanded.

He clapped a hand over his mouth. She could _hear_ him. She shouldn't be able to hear him. _No-one_ should be able to hear him. Lydia was looking warily around now, searching for the source of the voice. She hadn't looked directly at the mirror yet, her eyes seemed to slip over it every time her gaze swept the room. It was probably the barrier, he thought. She might not be able to see him at all.

Something inside him that felt suspicious like hope spluttered to life somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. He shoved it down brutally. What did it matter if she could hear him, anyway? She was just a stupid kid, she couldn't do anything. It made no difference. He should just leave, find something better to occupy himself with.

_Like what?_ A little voice inside him hissed. One that sounded alarmingly like Her, the tittering laugh she'd let out when she thought he'd done something particularly amusing. _Like watch another strip show? Like watching yuppies do lines of coke at some fancy exclusive party, and watching porn through the reflection of some creep's dingy motel mirror? Just watching. Watching, watching, watching, that's all you can do. You're alone in here._

_I've always been alone, _he thought stubbornly back at the little voice.

_Not like this, _the voice said. _You've never been alone like _this_._

He growled to himself, forgetting that Lydia would be able to hear him. She renewed her frantic search of the room at the sound, and he couldn't deny it anymore. She really _could_ hear him.

Fuck it. It's not like things could get any worse.

"Guess who, babes?" he said a little too loudly, grinning wildly and waiting for a reaction. She didn't disappoint.  
Lydia gasped, eyes darting around the room once more, before finally landing on the mirror. She squinted at it for a moment, as if trying to make out a blurry image, before her eyes widened in shock, looking comically large on her tiny face. She sprang to her feet, scattering bits of paper everywhere, uncaring when the scissors clattered to the floor dangerously close to her bare feet.

So she _could_ see him too. Betelgeuse's traitorous brain was relieved to be able to interact with another person. _Stupid brain_. He'd managed just fine on his own, he didn't _need_ to talk to people.

"What are _you_ doing here?" She demanded, putting the bed between her and the mirror as if that made any sort of difference. “ I thought you were I dunno, sandworm chow, or something.”

He smiled lopsidedly at her and made a show of tucking his hands behind his head and looking relaxed."What can I say? You can't keep a good ghost down."

“You're what Juno was here about aren't you?” she said, pointing at him accusingly.”The- weird energy readings, or whatever?”

“Juno? That old bitch been sniffin' around here?” he asked, dropping his relaxed posture and glaring around the room as if she would appear at any moment. They were probably monitoring the house. Could they even detect him inside the mirror? He didn't think so, but if Juno had been around lately he could be wrong. She was always out to get him, the old hag.

“Hey, you're not gonna tell her I'm here are you?” he asked, suddenly worried. Fuck, she could bring the Bureau down on him all over again.

“You're damn right I'm going tell her! After what you put me- put _us_, through last year? I don't want you anywhere _near_ me,” Lydia hissed, still braced for impact as if she expected him to crawl out of the mirror and rush her.

He shrugged in what he hoped was an easy going gesture (sometimes remembering how to be a human being came easier than others). Fuck, fuck, if Juno knew this conversation was happening she'd probably come down and fix the problem herself. Maybe things _could_ get worse after all.

“Hey c'mon,” he said with a crooked grin, hoping to ease her ire. “I'm not holding a grudge about the whole sandworm thing,” He _was_ holding a _little_ grudge, but hey, she didn't have to know that. “What's the problem?”

“The problem, is that you almost got us all killed last year! And you tried to _marry_ me!” She punctuated this point with an accusing jab at the mirror.

He snorted again, spluttering as he dug in his brain for an appropriately disarming response. “Oh, c'mon? What's a little forced marriage between friends?”  
Her face turned stormy, her delicate features holding a lot more menace than should really be possible. Hm. Not the right thing to say.

"Get out, or I smash the mirror!" She grabbed a stapler from the bed and brandished it threateningly in his direction. That wouldn't do anything to _him_, but he had no idea if it was this specific mirror that was the reason Lydia could see him in, or if it was all of them. Better not to risk it. He held up his hands in mock surrender.

"Hey, no need to get so worked up kid, I'm outta here." He let the window drift away from him, and caught sight of Lydia rushing over to inspect the mirror, peering in as if he were hiding somewhere within the reflection.

\-----

Lydia took a step back from the mirror and eyed it warily. Nothing further happened, but she kept staring at it for at least a minute while her thoughts spiralled uselessly about inside her head like late season wasps. She needed to tell Adam and Barbara, she thought, and had made it half way to the attic steps without even realising it before- she stopped. Her foot hovered over the first creaky step, yet to make contact with the smooth wood. She _should_ tell Adam and Barbara, who would tell Juno, who would tell-whoever it was they usually reported this stuff too. Juno, probably. She _should_ tell her parents. She put her foot back down and stared blankly at the stairs. She was the only one who had seen Him She was the only one who _knew_. With sudden, sinking black dread, she realised the responsibility of bringing Him back into their lives was now resting solely on her shoulders.

None of them would even talk about Him, and the idea that she would have to be the one to bring him back into their lives... she let her shoulders slump, the knowledge weighing her down.

She didn't _want_ to tell anyone.

Juno said he'd been dealt with, there had been a trial and everything. If he was able to harm her he would have done it by now, surely? She peaked back into her room and looked at the dresser. Her reflection looked back at her. Nothing more, nothing less. Last year she'd felt so helpless, first about her own life, then about the exorcism, and then the wedding. She clenched her fists into the skirt of her dress, gripping so tightly the fabric burned into her fingers and her knuckles turned deathly white. _Not this time, s_he said to herself. She set her jaw and in the mirror she saw the fire sparking in her own tired eyes. She marched into the room, grabbed her bathrobe, and threw it over the mirror, obscuring the reflection of her room completely. If- _when_\- he came back, she'd be ready for him. She wouldn't be helpless _this_ time.

\-----

Betelgeuse spent the night contemplating his encounter with Lydia. Could there be- a fault, somehow, in the curse? It didn't seem likely; the Bureau rarely made mistakes.It warranted further investigation, to be sure, but with Juno hanging about he'd better be careful. He didn't want to tip her off that there was something wrong with his latest curse and have the Bureau fix it. Juno's appearance was..._strange_. There was no way she could know where he was in the mirror world, or at least he assumed, he was completely cut off in here. Or at least he was _supposed_ to be. He also wasn't supposed to be seen or heard by anyone either, so it was a day for condradictions.

He drifted in the mirror world, hands behind his head, legs crossed. He watched the little mirrors pass by, flashing like distant stars.He'd been around for a long time now, not as long as Juno, who could literally remember when they built the Colosseum, but long enough. The Bureau _knew_ him, was the thing. He'd been on their naughty list for centuries now, they knew how he operated, and they knew that what he really enjoyed was an audience. He thrived on his showmanship and his theatrics, he lived (metaphorically speaking) to be at the centre of the action, whether the action was good or bad. That's probably why the Bureau picked this punishment for him. Sick bastards. Was this part of their plan somehow? Letting the kid see him? You never really knew what game they were playing. This could be a trick somehow, some ploy to get him an even worse punishment.

He scrubbed a grubby hand over his face. Trying to figure out what those bastards were up to was making his head spin, though not literally this time.

_Fuck_, he thought. Was the solitude really getting to him so much that he was considering this rich teenage brat as a conversation partner? Was he _really_ that desperate? It was a question he already knew the answer to. _Fuck_, he thought again. _How the mighty have fallen._

\-----

When Lydia finally crawled into bed it was after 2AM. God, she was going to feel that in the morning. She left the bathrobe over the mirror all night. She couldn't help but keep shooting it anxious and suspicious glances, and when she did manage to fall asleep it was restless, and skirted too close to the nightmares she had about dark water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the new chapter! It ended up being a little shorter than I intended, but that just means I have more to work with in the next chapter! Stay tuned!
> 
> (P.S If all goes to plan Lydia is going to go absolutely feral in this fic, and I for one cannot wait)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra long chapter this time! Double the usual length I aim for! Usually I would split this up into two chapters but this was a hurdle I wanted to clear so we could move things along a bit. It might mean the next chapter will take a little longer as I don't have as much of it solidified yet, but I didn't want to drag this out over two chapters. There was a lot here for me to edit, but I've refined it as best I can and I hope it isn't too rough.
> 
> I've been trying to alternate perspectives in this, but there's a scene between Lydia and Betelgeuse where that wouldn't really have worked very well, so I sort of...merged their perspectives together for that segment. I don't know hoe noticable it is to anyone but me, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to sit and rewrite those segments so it's staying as it is.

Lydia was right, she _did_ feel it in the morning. When her alarm went off at 7AM she slapped it off her nightstand and onto the floor in a desperate bid to make it _shut up._ Then her brain had caught up with the rest of her body and she'd groaned, rolling grudgingly out of bed. In an exhausted haze she dragged herself to the bathroom to get ready. It wasn't until she was confronted by her reflection in the mirror that she had a startling thought: what if he could see her in other mirrors? She stared hard at the mirror, but all that stared back at her was her own tired reflection. Still, she kept eyeing it suspiciously, and she tucked a towel over it for good measure while she got ready.

_It was for a good cause,_ she reminded herself as she tried not to fall asleep in her cereal, ignoring the concerned glances Barbara was shooting her. She shook herself awake for the third time and ate another mouthful of soggy Cheerios. She'd sat up half the night rereading the Handbook and making a note of anything that might be relevant, but so far she didn't have any ideas about how to get rid of the unwanted guest in her mirror. Except exorcism. Her stomach turned at the thought of what had almost happened to Adam and Barbara, and she shoved the memory away, scraping her bowl loudly as she chased the last few pieces of cereal onto her spoon. She'd rather not resort to _that_. She couldn't really imagine anyone deserving _that_.

She yawned loudly, and her father flicked the corner of his newspaper down to peer at her across the table. “Honey, did you stay up late reading again?” he asked exasperatedly.

Lydia chewed her last mouthful of cereal slowly. “Yeah,” she said once she'd swallowed. It wasn't even technically a lie. Her father just sighed, and went back to reading his newspaper.

“You sure that's all it is?” Barbara asked, peering at her pale face. Lydia had kept mostly to herself that weekend, and Barbara had probably noticed, given how much time she usually spent with the ghosts. Her and Adam's fight had unnerved her more than she thought it would, and she hadn't felt much like spending time with either of them. They didn't seem to still be arguing, but you never knew...

But Barbara looked so _worried_, and while Lydia felt kind of bad for keeping secrets, it just strengthened her resolve to figure this out on her own. She didn't want to have to involve her family in this a second time, so she just nodded, trying a tired smile that she hoped would put Barbara at ease. There _had_ to be a way to get rid of him herself. She just had to find it. Lydia put her empty bowl in the sink and went to finish getting ready for school, missing the lingering concern in Barbara's expression as she left the kitchen.

\-----

The next day was Monday, so Lydia would be at school. Good, Betelgeuse thought. Less chance of her interfering with his experiment. Delia seemed to have reappeared from somewhere that morning, so he singled her out for his first try. He waited until she was brushing her teeth in the mirror that morning before shouting, as loudly as his dead lungs would allow: “Hey Red! How's it hanging?”

She didn't so much as even blink. Just spat toothpaste into the sink and continued her rigorous brushing. Hm. He waited in the bathroom until Charles appeared in the mirror and tried again. Still nothing. He pulled a few of his scariest faces just for good measure, but none of them elicited a reaction.

OK. Phase 2.

Throughout the day he tried every other mirror in the house, waiting until either of the breathers in residence walked past them, but they never saw or heard him no matter what he tried.

He watched Charles do the crossword in the newspaper, staring out of the mantlepiece mirror blandly. So. it was either Lydia specifically, or it was the mirror in her room.

The problem was that he would have to reveal he could travel through all mirrors in order to test this theory. Either that or wait until Charles or Delia went into Lydia's room but he couldn't see that happening soon. It had been a few hours already and neither of them had gone in there. What little patience he had was paper thin these days, and he wasn't about to spend another boring day hanging around watching the breathers go about their boring little lives.

It could be that the kid was just especially sensitive to this kind of stuff, but that didn't seem quite right. This was his punishment, and it seemed unlikely that the Bureau would have overlooked something as simple as strengthening whatever barrier kept him invisible in the mirror against people with strong spiritual powers. The bastards were _way_ more attentive than that.

Instead of wasting anymore of his (_useless, let's face it_) time watching Charles struggle with basic nouns, he headed off in search of fresh meat. He spent the better part of two of days trying out mirrors in different locations, screaming at people in supermarkets, in dentists offices, even in a disco ball, but none of them ever react to his efforts. With every failed attempt his frustration amped higher and higher. He scowled after the woman with the stroller he'd been trying to frighten in the grocery isle. Shiny surfaces that weren't mirrors were more distorted and difficult for him to see out off, but they still counted as mirrors to a certain extent. So far he hadn't had any more luck using them than anything else. He flipped the woman a bird she would never see just to make himself feel better. It didn't work very well. Deciding not to waste anymore time he skulked back to Winter River, the mirror windows streaking past him like car headlights on a dark highway.

Why the _fuck_ was Lydia the only one who could see him? This was insane, she was just a kid, a spoilt rich one at that. There wasn't anything special about her.

When Betelgeuse reached the mirror in Lydia's room, it was dark. Round the bottom of the mirror he could see a tiny sliver of light, barely big enough to peek through.  
“Smart kid, but how you gonna stop me from talking to you huh?” he said smugly, hoping that she was actually in the room to hear him. There was a curse, and a scuffling noise before whatever it is she had covered the mirror with is ripped away, the blank darkness replaced by an irate teenage girl.

Betelgeuse wiggled his fingers at her in an obnoxious little wave. She glared harder at him. He bared his teeth at her in a mocking rictus grin.  
"Figured you wouldn't stay away for long,” she muttered to herself, crossing her arms and tilting her chin up at him. “What do you want?"  
He shrugged, adopting his signature pose of reclining on nothing with his hands behind his head. “Oh, I don't know, a new watch maybe?” He mused with false wistfulness. “A nice Cuban Cigar? Out of this fucking mirror?”  
"No! What do you want from _me_? From _here_?" She motioned to the room around her, letting her arms drop to her sides with an irritated slap that punctuated her point rather well. He could see now that she'd used her bathrobe to cover the mirror, and it swung limply at her side where it was still clenched in her hand. Her knuckles were gripping it so hard they were white.  
He shrugged again, inspecting his fingernails casually. "Nothing in particular, babes."  
"My name is _Lydia._"

"So how is life with your pet ghosts treating you hm?” He pressed, completely ignoring her comment. “You still look pretty miserable to me."  
Lydia threw the robe back over the mirror. _Rude_.  
"I can still talk, you know, kid," he called after her, peering at the edges of the mirror for any gaps he could still see through.  
"_Lydia._”  
"Lyds."

She ripped the robe back off again and he smiled innocently at her, batting his eyelashes.  
“So, what, is this supposed to be your punishment?” She demanded, crossing her arms like it made her look remotely intimidating. “You're stuck in a mirror?”

“Catch on quick kid,” he muttered, mood souring at the reminder.

She grinned slyly, leaning leisurely against the dresser. “It's what you get for being such an asshole. Doesn't seem like much of a punishment to me though.”

“Yeah? What the fuck would you know about it?” He spat.  
She rolled her eyes “Yeah, I'm sure it's terrible. Why are you in _my_ mirror though? Can't you go bother someone else.”

“So, you tell Juno yet?” He said instead, hoping to change the subject. He wasn't about to admit that _her_ company was better than _no_ company.

Her posture lost it's confidence suddenly, and she stiffened into that same defensive cross-armed pose she'd used earlier. “ No need,” she said airily. “I can deal with you myself.”

“Oh, can you?” he said, laughing like tar.

She set her jaw and looked down her nose at him.

“You're not so tough, Adam and Barbara took care of you.”

“They got lucky,” he spat. _Stupid fucking rich brat, _he thought. _All the fucking same._ _They think they know how the world works but they don't know shit._ “Fucking sandworms,” he muttered instead, not wanting to air his internal monologue. “Man, I hate 'em.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and moved to pick the robe back up to cover the mirror, which cleared his view of the bed. Betelgeuse noticed for the first time that she had been reading the Handbook, before he'd interrupted. It was covered in little sticky notes and tabs marking pages.

“What, you looking to brush up on your ghost knowledge?” He asked with a cocked eyebrow. Yikes, this kid had issues. She was giving herself _homework_ for her impending and inevitable death.  
She scooted quickly in front of the mirror again, blocking his view. “It's none of your business what I'm doing.” She said hastily.

She lifted the robe again and the pieces clicked into place. “Oh, I get it- you think there's going to be something in there that can get rid of me, don't you? What, you get tired of running to other people to solve your problems?”

“Nice to see you have enough self awareness to admit that you _are_ a problem.” Lydia said sardonically, robe still raised up to her chin as she made ready to cover the mirror.

“You're not gonna find any answers in there kid,” he jeered. “Trust me on that one.”

She finally lowered the robe again, schooling her features into the same false confident sternness she'd worn earlier. “You don't know that. Besides, I wouldn't trust you to tell me that the sky was blue.”

“That's your problem not mine. And I _do _know, because I wrote it.”

She stared at him. He stared back. Her mind conjured up images of him sitting diligently at a typewriter, tip tapping away at the keys, a pair of bifocal glasses perched on the end of his crooked nose. It was _absurd_. She scoffed, dropping her robe into a forgotten heap off the floor and grabbing the book off the bed.

“You did not, you liar.” She flipped open the cover and searched frantically for an author in the foreward pages, but to her dismay, found none.

In the mirror Betelgeuse reclined sideways on thin air and propped his head up idly on his hand.

“It's probably gone through a few editions since I saw it last, but the original? All me baby.”

“Then why isn't your name in it anywhere?” She demanded, holding the book up on the title page in evidence. He snorted again, the same disgusting phlegmy sound he always seemed to make.

“What, you think the Bureau were going to give me credit for it? As if.” He slipped a crinkled packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, using his thumb, as if this were some kind of _Laurel & Hardy_ sketch.

“The Bureau?” Lydia asked, curious despite herself. The Bureau was mentioned in the Handbook, but despite their apparent importance, it skimped on the details and Adam and Barbara were still frustratingly vague about their time spent on the otherside.

“Slick bastards, run the whole being dead show,” Betelgeuse said, blowing out a wispy smoke ring. “No one had even _thought_ of a full book until I came along,” he said smiling like the cat that got the cream. His expression soured fast and he added “And they were quick to cover up who's idea that was as well.”

Lydia frowned down at the book. “That's not right, isn't that a form of plagiarism-”

He laughed again, a sharp bark of sound that grated on her nerves. “Kid, if you think the dead have got time to give a shit about plagiarism you're more clueless than I thought.”

She raised an eyebrow challengingly at him. “You're dead- how much can you have to worry about?”

“You'd be surprised,” he muttered to himself.

She narrowed her eyes at him, and against her better judgement, moved to sit at her dressing table. She stared him down through the mirror, her dark eyes far more piercing than a small teenage girl had any right to. “Enlighten me,” she demanded.

He shook his head. “Not my job to educate you kid, you'll find out on your own one day anyway.”

She propped her head in her hands, and began to scrutinise him.

He feigned casualness, waiting for her to speak, but she just kept staring.

“What?” he demanded eventually.

“What is your deal, exactly?” she asked.

He didn't like the way she was staring at him. Like he was a puzzle to be solved.

“Huh?” he said eloquently.

“Why are you?” she grimaces, gesturing vaguely at him “Like this?”

“In the mirror?” he asked, genuinely at a loss. This kid was fucking _weird_.

“No- why are you-” She gestured helplessly again, her hand waving madly in the air. “ Why are you such an _asshole_?” She blurted out at last, her brow set in a perplexed scowl.

He stared at her. His face twitched. He started to laugh.

“What's so funny?” she demanded, the faintest hint of colour rising in her pale cheeks.

He just laughed louder. When he'd calmed down she was scowling at him like he'd personally offended her. She was a brat but at least she was _funny_. Most people were too nervous around him to say things like that to his face. He had a reputation, after all.

“You're something else kid.” He wiped away a tear. “You know, I wasn't kidding when I said to Babs that you understood me. We're kindred spirits,” he said, winking at her.

She pulled a disgusted face. “Gross, I'm like, a child.”

He grimaced back at her. “Not like that, get your mind outta the gutter.”

“Hey, you're the one that tried to marry me, remember.”

He groaned, rolling his eyes. “Are you still carrying that cross kid? Look, that was all bureaucratical, you know like a- what'd'you breathers call it?” He snapped his fingers, searching for the phrase. “Like a green card marriage!” He pointed at her triumphantly. “That's it! It was all about the paperwork, kid.”

Lydia eyed him sceptically.

“What you don't believe me?”

“Sounds _way_ too convenient of an explanation if you ask me.”

“Well, it's a good think nobody asked you, isn't it?” he mocked, sardonically.

“You literally _just_ asked-”

“Whatever, nevermind,” he said loudly waving her off. “The Handbook mention anything about the Orpheus Contract?”

She shook her head, giving up trying to get a word in edgeways for now. He snorted, not surprised in the least.

“Yeah, that'll be right, bet they got rid of that like 7 editions ago. Look anyway, Greek guy. Thousands of years ago-”

“I know who Orpheus is-”

“Good for you, now shut it. Orpheus guy. Kicks up a big fuss over this broad-”

“Eurydice-”

“Gesundheit. What was I saying? Yeah Orpheus's broad- she snuffs it, right, and he's all, boo hoo, I can't be with the love of my life, so he appeals to the Bureau and the PTB and they're like-”

Lydia frowned. “Wait, are you telling me that Orpheus was a real person?”

“Of course he was a real person, whatta they teaching you kids these days? Anyway, Orpheus marries his dearly departed Eurydice, therefore tying there souls together-”

He held his his pinky fingers up for her to see, linking them together for added effect. “Meaning that where ever they go, in life or death, they can always get back to each other.”

Lydia eyed him dubiously. “Yeah, OK, but how would that have helped _you_? Pretty sure you were just looking for an excuse to be a creep and this is your elaborate attempt to backtrack so you can try to manipulate me again.”

He dropped his hands back down to his sides, shoving them in his still tragically empty pockets. “C'mon kid, gimme some credit here, I got standards you know,” he grumbled. She wasn't wrong about the last part though. He still harboured a tiny flame of hope that somehow he might be able to get her to find him a way out of the mirror. But hey, they'd get to that later.

“Standards? _You_?” She looked him up and down disbelievingly.

“Ok, not many,” he admitted. “But I got a few. Anyway, here's the thing; I'm cursed.”  
Lydia cocked her head to the side. “Cursed?”

“Yeah, the whole saying my name three times, but I can't tell you my name, blah blah blah, classic curse material, right there. And the Orpheus Contract? Renders all such curses null and void,” he finished smugly, like he was proud of himself for having come up with it.

Lydia was still staring at him like he'd told her that the sky was orange and that cigarettes grew on trees (_God, what a world that would be_), and he shrugged, deciding not to push the issue for now.

“Hey, believe it or don't kid, it is what it is.”

“I _don't_ believe it,” she said, finally, picking up the robe again. “And I'm going to find a way to get rid of you for good this time.”

She dropped it over the mirror and disappeared from view.

Lydia thought over their conversation that evening . What he'd been saying had sounded plausible enough, but she knew first hand that he was a manipulative and opportunistic asshole, so she wasn't holding her breath that anything he said turned out to be true. She redoubled her efforts to find something useful in the book (_as if he wrote this, c'mon_) but still there didn't seem to be much practical information. It's advice usually added up to; see your caseworker, which was a problem if you didn't have enough Health Vouchers. Maybe Betelgeuse had been right about death being more complicated than she thought. As she said goodnight to her parents and the Maitlands that night, she was caught off guard when Barbara turned to her an said, “I'll be up to brush your hair in a sec.”

Lydia's heart jumped uncomfortably in her chest. Brushing her hair would mean sitting in front of the mirror, and her mirror was currently..._occupied_.

“Actually- I'm kind of tired, mind if we skip it tonight?” She had no idea if Barbara would be able to see him or not, but either way it was a situation she'd rather avoid.

“Sure, honey, you get some rest.”

Lydia didn't miss the note of uncertainty in Barbara's voice, and the undercurrent of disappointment her words held. But it would be over soon, she reassured herself. She could handle this.

_She's 7 and her mom has promised to take her to the pool that day. Her swimsuit has flowers on it because the store didn't have any with spiders, but at least they're roses, which were dramatic and romantic enough to appease Lydia. Her dad has being paying for swimming lessons, and while he's managed to make a few of them, her mom has never had the time, and she's eager to show off what she's learned._

“_Mom! Mom, look!” She shouts across the echoing vastenss of the pool, the sounds of other children a tinny cacophany of shrieks and splashes ringing in her little ears. Her mom waves from the sidelines where she sits with the other parents, and Lydia is too young to remember if she'd looked bored or not, wether the wave had been enthusiastic, whether she'd been smiling, frowning, anything, the details have blurred and fuzzed over time, and all she can remember is that her swimsuit had flowers on it._

_Lydia smiles at her mother, jumps as high as she can, and drops into the water, breath held tight on whatever meagre amount of air she has trapped in her lungs. She starts to swim to the surface, but nothing happens. The glint of the fluorescent lights on the water gets no closer, and she starts to panic, and the crisp blue of chlorine water begins to blacken and darken with a thousand squirming shadows that pull her down and down and down, her ribs tighten and she chokes on water that is now rushing rushing rushing-_

Lydia woke with no air in her lungs. She spluttered and choked for a moment before she remembered how to breathe, and her chest heaved in one laboured breath after another.

Once she'd caught her breath, she shot the mirror a furtive glance, but it remained as still and quiet as it had all night. She hadn't been sleeping well, knowing that he could be there, on the other side. She could block his view just fine, but he had been right about sound. She couldn't do anything about that. She dragged herself through her morning rituals, groggy from a bad nights sleep, and absolutely dreading the approaching school day. When she showered (again, covering the mirror) she turned the heat up way past what was bearable just to try and forget the chill of the water from her dream. Even showering after the nightmares made her flinch, the feel of water still on her skin.

Delia was already in the kitchen when she came down for breakfast. Delia's sleep schedule was wildly unpredictable, but usually she wasn't up this early.

“There's some juice on the counter there, if you want it.” Her stepmother said as she fussed around the toaster. It was new and it had far more buttons and dials than a toaster should rightfully have, and had cost $300.

Lydia picked the glass of juice up, slipping into the chair closest to her and sipping it sleepily. It was ice cold, which at least woke her up a little bit.

“You're up early,” Lydia said, watching as Delia finally conquered the toasters many settings and pushed the lever down, the toast descending from view into the fiery pit of modern convenience.

“Oh, I haven't slept,” she said dismissively. “I was too excited, too many ideas.” OK, now _that_ would explain a few things. Delia took a gulp of coffee.

“How's it going with your client?” Lydia asked. She was still curious about the book that Karswell had mentioned at dinner last week, especially in light of recent events. So far she'd only consulted the Handbook, but maybe there were other avenues of research out there for her to explore.

“She's a little weird,” Delia replied, distractedly, pouring another cup of coffee.

_Pot, kettle,_ Lydia thought, wondering what number coffee that was that Delia was currently making short work of.

“But she wants me to design her a centre piece for her library- oh, that reminds me.” She spun around the kitchen for a moment looking for something. “Ah!”

She picked up the book that had been sitting on the counter and handed it to Lydia.

It was bound in green leather and the embossed letters on the cover read;_ Hermetic Mysticism Through the Ages_.

“Alison gave it to me, but honestly it's just not my thing. It's all Greek to me.” Delia said with a flippant wave.

“You're giving it to me?” Lydia said, blinking at her

“Sure, I thought you'd like it.” She said, smiling. Her smile faded when Lydia continued to stare at her. She set down her coffee. “Don't you like it?”

“No, I do,” Lydia said, hurriedly, before Delia could get worked up over it. “Thanks,” she added, grinning. She opened the book, flicking through it avidly. It was full of weird engravings and woodcuts to accompany the dense academic text. She'd been looking for new lunchtime reading material.

The morning was brisk, but not quite cold. Autumn would be in full swing soon, and Lydia spent the short bike ride to school thinking up Halloween projects for herself. Plus, she had her new book to read. The nightmares and the mirror seemed far, far behind her, diminishing into nothing as she freewheeled down the hill from the house. The cool dry wind blew back her hair, and she could hardly remember what it had felt like to shake and shiver in the too hot shower that morning, as she chased phantom chills from her skin.

By the time she pulled to stop, propping her bike up outside school, her hair was sticking up at all angles from the ride, and she smoothed it down as best she could, grabbing her bag and heading inside.

“Lydia, good morning!” She turned as she headed through the doors to see a small pale girl, with wide eyes and mousy brown hair behind her. Jennifer and Lydia were, if not friends, than at least friendly. They did their homework together at the library sometimes, and swapped book recommendations, but that was about it.

“Morning Jennifer,” Lydia said, waiting for the other girl to fall into step beside her

“Did you do the Math homework?” Jennifer asked, buzzing with nerves, as was her usual state of being. Lydia dreaded the day she started to drink coffee.

Jennifer's words caught up with her and Lydia froze. “_Shit._” She'd completely forgotten about the homework. She had other things on her mind after all, things way more important than algebra.

“You didn't? Oh.” Jennifer dithered for a moment, deliberating something. Finally she pulled her math folder out of her bag and shoved it at Lydia.

“Well- I guess you can copy mine after all the times you've helped me, but I don't know if it's right or not-”

“Thanks Jennifer, you're a life saver!” Lydia said, taking the folder gratefully.

She spent the sparse ten minutes she had before homeroom quickly copying Jennifer's work (with a few alterations, she wasn't stupid enough to copy them exactly). Jennifer wasn't stupid either, when it came it. She was one of the smartest kids at school, but apparently she'd never gotten the memo, because she always rushed to compare answers with people before class, panicking that she'd gotten everything wrong. Usually she got straight As every time.

Math passed without incident, and Lydia counted the seconds until the lunch hour when she could go outside and read her book in peace. Finally the bell rang, and Lydia rushed outside to find a quiet corner to settle into for the next hour. She pulled out her lunch (which Barbara made for her every day), and settled down to read. She got about 15 minutes of peace before a passing shadow said to her “What're you reading Deetz?”

Sylvia Waterman wasn't the most popular girl in school, but she was the richest. She was also the daughter of a local politician and his socialite wife, and everything about Lydia seemed to offend her somehow.

“Oh nothing,” Lydia said airily, turning the page without looking up. “Just looking for a cure for your bad attitude, but I can't seem to find a spell strong enough to work on you.”

Sylvia sneered, and her back up did too. Her friends, if they could be called that, were called Melanie and Fiona. None of them seemed to particularly enjoy each other's company so Lydia had no idea why they even hung out with each other.

“You think Miss Bellarmine would confiscate that if she saw it? It's gotta violate some kinda school policy.” Melanie said waspishly, tugging the end of her braid between her fingers.

Lydia snorted. “Oh yeah? You think she'd confiscate the cigarettes you have stashed in the girl's bathroom? Pretty sure those are a big policy violation.”

Sylvia smacked the book out of Lydia's hands.

“Wow, real mature, Sylvia,” Lydia said, brushing grass off the book and inspecting it for damage. Luckily it didn't seem any worse for wear.

“You're a fucking _freak_, Deetz.” Sylvia spat. “No wonder nobody wants you around.”

Sylvia stalked off with her friends in tow, and Lydia was glad she didn't stick around to see how deep her last comment cut. She shut the book, concentration shattered, and stared balefuly down at her lunch. She'd lost her appetite.

Lydia trailed home despondently that evening. The book felt heavy in her bag, despite not weighing any more than it had that morning, and she dropped her bag carelessly in the hall as she entered.

“Hey guys?” she called. No answer; they must be in the attic. Both Delia's and her father's cars hadn't been in the drive when she'd come in either. She sighed, toeing off her shoes. It was just like old times. In New York she'd come home to an empty house like this at least once a week.

“Lydia? Is that you?”

She grinned. But _this_ house was _never_ empty. She grabbed her bag, and ran upstairs to find Adam and Barbara. Usually they only kept to the attic if they had company, but they'd been making some adjustments to the layout recently, and had been spending more time in there than the rest of the house. Moving furniature was so much easier when you could just levitate into position, Barbara had told her.

She practically threw herself at Barbara as she reached the attic.

“Rough day?” Adam asked, as he lowered the sofa that had been floating two feet off the ground.

She nodded, releasing Barbara to hug him too.

“Want to talk about it?” Barbara asked, smoothing down Lydia's windswept hair.

She shook her head. The less time she spent on Syliva Waterman the better. “Nah, I just want to forget about it. Hey, did you guys see my new book?” She scrambled with her bag for a moment, pulled the book out and holding it out proudly for them to see.

They peered at the cover looking puzzled, eyes scanning the title.

“Hermetic what?” Barbara asked with a frown

“Mysticism,” Lydia said, lowering the book to flick through the pages. “ I haven't had time to read much of it yet, but I think it's about like, an old occult alchemical religion or something. The illustrations are really cool, look-” She flicked to a page she particularly liked depicting a large serpent and held the book up once again- and caught them exchanging that same look from the attic the other day. The one from when she'd told them about Karswell. The _concerned_ one.

_Great_, she thought. _First Sylvia, now Adam and Barbara._

Lydia rolls her eyes. “You guys, I'm not gonna start drawing pentagrams on my bedroom floor and sacrificing chickens to the lord of flies. I'm not stupid,” she said, annoyance leaking into her tone.

“Oh honey, we know,” Barbara said apologetically, looking a little sheepish at having been caught. “We just worry, you know? There's a whole other world opened up to you now and we don't know what kind of stuff is real, and what's not.” She shrugged helplessly, and Adam took that as his cue to step in and be the Supportive Husband. “She's right Lydia, last year I would have said this was all nonsense but...” He gestured to himself.

“It's not like it's a spell book or anything. Just history.” She clarified, but the concern was still lurking at the edges of their expressions in a way that made her heart sink a little bit more. She'd been looking forward to coming home to get away from this kind of thing. She was already the odd one out at school, but she'd thought at least she'd be able to be herself at home.

“Hey, the new records we ordered just arrived, wanna give them a listen? There might even be some levitation involved if you're lucky.” Barbara said with a conspiratorial wink.

Lydia shook her head, a little annoyed at the subject change. “Can't I got a lot of homework,” she lied. She pretended the flicker of disappointment that passed over their faces didn't hurt.

“Maybe another time,” she said, retreating out of the attic, closing the door on their disapproval. She clutched the book tightly to her chest as she headed back downstairs. It felt heavier than ever.

She knew the other girls at school thought she was weird. She got on fine with most of them, but she could always see the little thoughts flicking about in their heads when they spoke, the way she seemed to make them nervous. They didn't get her, that was fine. Whatever, she had Adam and Barbara. But maybe they thought she was weird too. She looked down at the book again, and suddenly she couldn't stand the sight of it anymore. She shoved it roughly into her bag and snapped it shut.

Her thoughts wandered inevitably back to the nightmare she'd had. She glanced at the kitchen, where the phone hung innocently on the wall by the door. She bit her lip.

She punched in the number that she had memorised, the digits running restlessly through her brain, and waited. She squished the coils of the cord nervously in her hand as the phone rang, holding her breath, and hoped that this time-

“_The number you have called is not available. Please-”_

She slammed the receiver down and heaved out the air in her lungs. Heaving it back in was a lot harder. _Fine_, she thought. She was on her own. She had more important things to do anyway. Like finding a way to get her uninvited guest out of the mirror. She spent an unproductive hour in the living room trying to wrestle some useful information out of the Handbook. Frustrated, she balled up her notes and threw them across the room. Stupid book. She huffed. Her father had come home about half an hour ago, but seemed to sense that she wanted to be left alone. Delia would be back soon, he'd said, and Lydia decided to retreat upstairs so she wouldn't have to deal with both of her parents. The storm clouds in her head had turned thunderous by the time she made it up to her room, and she threw her bag moodily onto her bed.

“Well, looks like I'm still here.” Betelgeuse said from the mirror. “Couldn't find anything useful in the Handbook after all, huh?”

She groaned. “Shut _up_.”

“Jeez kid, what crawled up your ass and died?”

She marched over to the mirror, ripping the robe off, ready to get into a screaming match with him if need be.

“Looking to cast a few spells there Sabrina?” he asked, before she could even open her mouth, peering at something behind her.

She turned, noticing her book spilling out from her bag for the first time, the twisting arcane symbols on the cover in full view of the mirror Lydia snatched it up, clutching it defensively to her chest. “Not that it's any of your business, but it was a gift,” she said defensively.

“Who from? Alistair Crowley?” he needled, weairng that same stupid grin he always seemed to have.

“God, were you this much of an asshole when you were alive, too?” She spat, temper already fraying.

He cackled blackly at her, like it was all just a big joke. “Just wait kid, once you're older you'll realise that everyone is an asshole.”

“That's not true! Just look at Adam and Barbara.”

Something twisted in his expression, and he lost a little of the gleeful mischief it usually carried. “Oh please, you think that's going to last? They'll get sick of it here sooner or later, trust me kid”

“You don't know that,” she said, but Sylvia's words were ringing in her head and no one had picked up the phone, the recorded message mocking in it's repetition.

“Eh, what do you know,” he scoffed dismissively. “You're just a dumb rich kid who's never had a real problem in her entire life.”

Lydia slammed her hands on her desk, suddenly furious, her pale face turning red and blotchy. “You don't know anything about me.” She said, her voice level, but her lip trembling in anger.

He snorted derisively. “Oh what, like your life's so full of problems?” He fluttered his eyes mockingly, imitating Lydia's voice. “Things are just _so_ hard for me, with my rich parents and big house,”

“That's _not_ how I sound-”

“But oh!” He threw his arm over his forehead. “I'm just _so_ tortured and artistic, I write suicide notes just for the attention-”

“You don't know what you're talking about-”

“But I don't have the guts to actually go through with it-”

“Shut up!”

Betelgeuse's view of Lydia and her room was suddenly a broken cobweb, fractured from the point where the book had made contact with the mirror. Lydia stared at her own hand as if she had never seen it before. The book lay abandoned on the floor in front of her, showered in little slivers of silver-backed glass. There was a long, awkward pause.

“Wow, kid, maybe you should get your daddy to pay for some anger management classes for you.” Betelgeuse quipped, eventually.

Her expression turned savage, her face twisting, baring her teeth, the cauldron of bad feelings in finally bubbling over.

“Get out of my life!” She grabbed the mirror and pulled, bringing the whole thing crashing forward narrowly avoiding

The broken fragments of the mirror skittered across the floor, leaving Betelgeuse with an incomprehensible jigsaw of an image, an incomplete picture of pieces of Lydia and her room.

“Huh,” he said.

Lydia stood over the remains of her mirror panting heavily.

“Lydia?” her father called. “Are OK up there?”

Oh _shit_. “I-I'm fine- uh- my dresser fell over?” She cringed when it came out a question.

Footsteps hurried up the stairs and her father and Delia appeared at the door. “Honey, what happened?” he asked, while Delia pulled her away from the glass.

“Uh- I was – I dropped my pen and I was trying to move the dresser and it must have got stuck or something- and it just. Fell.” She said lamely. Her heart was going a mile a minute, adrenaline fueling her lie.

Her dad pulled the dresser up, panting just a little, he'd never been particularly fit, and Lydia's heart leapt to her throat when she saw the draw containing the note hanging open.

She moved abortively forward, reaching instinctively to hide it. “Dad-”

He pushed the draw shut without a second thought and turned to her “Pumpkin?”

She swallowed thickly. “The glass- be careful.”

Delia patted her on the shoulder. “Why don't you get Barbara, she likes to clean things up, right?”

Lydia pulled a face. “She's not a maid, Delia.”

“It was only a suggestion,” she said airily, before retreating back downstairs. Which left Lydia to see how tired her Dad looked, and how he was looking at the mirror like it was something else to add to a list of other things he already had to deal with. He ran a distracted hand through his hair.

“Sorry Dad,” she said quietly.

He sighed, offering her a tired smile. “No harm done, sweetheart.” He patted her on the shoulder, taking her arm to lead her from the room. “We'll get this cleaned up and I'll get someone in to replace the mirror.”

That night Lydia scowled at the ceiling. She couldn't let him keep doing things like this. She threw back the covers, striding with purpose, before remembering the glass and tiptoeing gingerly, even though they'd vacuumed thoroughly. Barbara had helped them clean up in the end. She'd come down to see what was going on and had offered to help at once. She'd even floated the dresser out into the landing so it could be sent to be repaired tomorrow.

Lydia slipped out of her room and onto the landing where the remains of her dresser now stood. The sparse shards of glass left in the mirror twinkled sadly at her in the gloom. They showed nothing but reflections. She pulled the draw open and withdrew the bag containing the note. The dressing table felt- compromised suddenly. _Unsafe_. She went back to her room and cast about for a new hiding place. Her eyes landed on some empty film canisters on her nightstand that she hadn't thrown away yet. She grabbed one, uncapping the small tub and stuffing the bag inside. She marked it with a little cross in permanent marker on the lid so as not to lose it among it's identical brothers, and slipped it into the drawer of the nightstand.

She never opened the bag before putting it in it's new hiding place, and had quite forgotten that the ring was also inside it. In fact, she'd forgotten the ring existed at all, and in the bag it sat, and waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lydia has had enough!! She's filled with teenage angst and Betelgeuse get's to have a front row seat so he can learn some damn empathy and stop being quite such a bastard. I've had that scene where she breaks the mirror planned for ages but I always worried it wasn't believable so I hope it reads OK. I think movie Lydia is a lot more downbeat and deadpan than her cartoon and musical counterparts, so I'd like to give her the opportunity to express some big emotions in this fic. 
> 
> It's interesting to me seeing how other people view the wedding concept from the film, because in hindsight it's very...not good. The thing is, that as a kid I honestly never thought that Betelgeuse had any genuine romantic interest in Lydia. He never expresses any at any point in the film, and I thought that, like the musical says, as a 'green card' thing. One of the reasons I started writing this was because I read the proposed plot for the sequel and absolutely hated that they'd been planning for Betelgeuse to be in love with Lydia. Bad move Timmy B, very glad you didn't end up making it after all. I also never thought it would bring him back to life either, I thought it would mean that they wouldn't be able to use his name to put him back anymore and that he could just come and go as he pleased, so that's what I've gone with here. 
> 
> Depending on how the pacing goes for the next chapter we should be getting to see some of Betelgeuse's back story very soon.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me this far! There should be some serious Drama in the coming chapters, so stay tuned!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said it would be a while before the next chapter, but I realised I had more written for this than I thought. It's a little fragmented, but I had some plot developments I wanted to drop this chapter and I need to work out some specifics before I can focus more on some of the plot threads I'm setting up here. 
> 
> I feel like I got a little repetitive in this chapter and maybe reiterated things a bit too much, so I'm going to try and move things along a bit in the next installment, especially in terms of Betelgeuse and Lydia's relationship, I think it's time they started to form a truce, if not a friendship. I'm thinking we're about halfway through Act 1 here, and once I'm finished the first half I might take a little break and work on some other stuff I have planned.
> 
> (I have so many Beetlejuice fic concepts. So Many.)

“So, here's the thing,” Lana said, handing back Betelgeuse's battered file. “There's no record of the name change you're looking for.”

Juno took the proffered documents with a confused frown, looking between it and Lana. “That can't be right- look again.”

Lana sighed heavily, reaching up to straighten her scarf. “Juno I _looked_. I double checked, I triple checked; it never happened. Not on record, anyway.”

“Then how the _hell_ did his name get on file like that?” Juno demanded to no one in particular. There were _channels_ for this sort of thing. They didn't just _happen_.

“I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you,” she said, with a sympathetic shrug. “My shift starts soon, I gotta go.” She was already retreating back behind her desk and settling herself at the computer, but Juno barely noticed.

“Right, right, thanks,” Juno replied distractedly, wandering out of HR and back into the jagged chiaroscuro corridors of the Building. She meandered along, barely paying attention to where she was going, but thousands of years in this place left her little need for that. It was all muscle memory at this point, her feet remembering which corridors to take, her thoughts reserved for the folder in her hand. She stared at the name on the file, and the more she looked at it the more alien it became to her.

_Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse._

It _had_ to be a name change, she was sure of it. Otherwise the naming curse wouldn't have stuck so well. To change your name after death placed new importance on it, and made it easier for curses and spells to take effect. It was a drawback that some people deemed worth it. Words could be powerful, and if a name change made a person feel better about themselves then, well, that was their business. Sometimes it was superficial, like putting on a new item of clothing, and very little about that person changed.But sometimes a name change could add a whole other dimension to a ghosts power, that was the entire reason the Bureau monitored that sort of thing. Juno herself had never bothered. Betelgeuse _definitely_ seemed the type to do that though. Besides, she refused to believe that a stable hand from early 1300s Europe could be called _Betelgeuse_. It was just ridiculous. And it was the _only_ name on his file; where was his surname? Everything else was there, his birthday, his age (living and dead), hell they even had his star sign and Chinese zodiac year, but not his _name_?

“I'll look for the damn files myself then,” she muttered to herself. Just as soon as she was done with her next load of paperwork.

\-----

He didn't feel _guilty_ exactly, about what he'd said. It was true, after all. Kid just had no sense of humour, he decided, sucking down on another cigarette (he thought he'd earned it after that exchange). But he had been trying to keep on her good side though, and maybe losing his patience with her had been a bad move. But it pissed him off to see her moping about like she had the fucking worst life in the world! Oh wah, she was rich and had a nice house and two parents and could probably live comfortably of her Daddy's money for the rest of her life. What could she possibly have to complain about? And she'd got _mad_ when he'd pointed it out! He was doing her a favour, really, when you thought about it. She could have it way worse. Like he did now, just as an example. He sulked through the mirrors, wondering when would be a good opportunity to approach her again. At least this took care of his dilemma of if Lydia's mirror was special or not or not. He'd find out when he decided to approach her again. Something told him that the mirror had nothing to do with it.

\-----

It wasn't long before he reappeared. Barely a day had passed before she was brushing her teeth before bed and he materialised in the bathroom mirror, fading in to the reflection as if he was there in the room with her. It was the first time she'd left the mirror uncovered for weeks, and it looked like her instincts had been right.

“I knew it! I knew you could go in other mirrors!” She crowed triumphantly, jabbing her finger at him, her words garbled from the amount of toothpaste still in her mouth.

“Yeah, yeah, good for you kid,” he grumbled with a roll of his eyes. Guess that answers the question of whether the mirror was special or not.” He muttered to himself under his breath,

She was still pointing accusingly at him, and paused to spit into the sink before continuing. “God, I bet you've been spying on us forever, that's _so_ gross-”

“Oh, like you'd have any different in my position-”

“How long were you watching us?” She demanded, gripping the sink and leaning over to glare at him. He waved his hand dismissively.

“Never mind that-”

“You know what, it doesn't matter, because I'm going to get rid of you once and for all and none of them will ever have to know you were here-”

“Kid, would you fucking _listen_ to me!” He yelled, grinding his teeth in frustration.

She snapped her mouth shut and blinked at him. He waited, but she didn't say anything else, so he heaved out a breath that was, in theory, supposed to be calming, and continued.

“Look, I got places to go, people to do, and I do not want to be stuck in here for the next 1999 years; you think I want to get out of here in the year 2000? I'm gonna miss the whole millennium!”

She continued to stare at him, toothbrush forgotten in her hand. He forged on ahead while he still had her attention.

“I'm gonna level with you here OK? This conversation?” He gestured back and forth between them. “Shouldn't be happening.”

“OK,” Lydia replied sardonically, popping her toothbrush back into it's stand with a flourish. “Let's end it then; goodbye!” She waved mockingly at him and turned to leave the bathroom, probably for a more mirror free area of the house.

Betelgeuse yelped, scrambling to gain control of the conversation. “Hold up! Hold up! I meant, that you shouldn't be able to see or hear me,” he called after her. “_No-one _should, that's part of the whole, punishment thing.”

Lydia stopped, looking curiously over her shoulder at him. “Then how come I can see you?” She asked, interested despite herself.

“Beats me kid, that's what I've been trying to figure out.” He propped an arm up on the edge of the mirror and leaned against it. “For some reason, you're the only one who can see _or_ hear me, trust me, I've tried it with other people and they didn't even know I existed.”

“What's so special about me?” Lydia asked, coming to stand square in front of the mirror again.

“Now that,” he said, cocking his finger in a pistol motion and pointing it at her, “is what I'd like to find out. So, what'd'you we help each other out, huh? You help me figure out why this” he gestured between them, “is happening at all, and you- uh-”

He faltered. What did a gothy suicidal teen want? A new pair of Doc Martens? Better taste in music? A sun lamp? He shook his head, holding out his hands in a surrendering gesture.

“I dunno, name your price kid, I'm dying in here. I gotta get out pronto or I'm gonna lose my fuckin' marbles, you get me?” He tried to look imploring, perhaps even genuine, if his face could still manage it, but not desperate; that was never a good look.

Lydia eyed him shrewdly, leaning on the sink and pushing herself up on her toes to look him in the eye. If ghosts could sweat he probably would have. The suspense was killing him. Again.

“I'll think about it,” she said at last, dropping her gaze and affecting a nonchalant expression.

“What?” He yelped, throwing all pretense of dignity out the window and slapping his hands against the inside of the mirror. So much for not looking desperate. “No, c'mon, it's a simple yes or no!” He begged, staring after her retreating back, squishing his face up against the barrier.

She paused at the door and leveled him with an unimpressed look. “I _said_, I'll think about it. Besides, I'm still mad about what you said.”

“What? What did I do?” He demanded.

Lydia laughed disbelievingly. “Are you kidding me? You _know_ what you did.”

He growled in frustration, letting his forehead thunk against the mirror. “You know what? I _really_ don't get you kid.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” She asked defensively, thrown by his sudden change of tack. Well, at least she wasn't leaving, at any rate. Maybe he could string this conversation along a bit.

“You got a sweet set-up here,” he replied, waving a hand at the contents of the bathroom. Maybe not the most glamorous example, but compared to what they'd had when he'd been alive it was downright opulent. “But you're still all doom and gloom about being alive.”

“No I'm not-”  
“Oh yeah? Struck a nerve with that suicide bit didn't I?” He pressed, leering at her. This kid didn't think he had her number, but he did. Oh, he did.

Lydia pressed her lips into a thin line, patience clearly fraying. She didn't let him goad her though, not this time. “You saw the note didn't you? When you were spying on me?”

“It wasn't _spying_ it was- idle observation. Plus, I got nothing better to do all, day so sue me. Anyway it's none of my business if you wanna go throwing toasters in the tub or playing with daddy's razor blades.”

She pulled a disgusted face, but seemed to decide he wasn't worth the effort this time. “Oh, what would you know about it anyway?” She scoffed, rolling her eyes as she turning to leave. She headed out the door without a second look back, turning the lights off on as she went and leaving him in the silver gloom. He was glad she wasn't around to hear the ringing silence her comment left behind.

\-----

It didn't sit well with her that he'd seen her note. She tapped her pencil in her history notebook, having tuned out her teacher at least 15 minutes ago. Nobody but her had seen it and she'd wanted to keep it that way. That was information he had over her now, even if he couldn't tell anyone about it yet. If he somehow got out of the mirror she did _not_ trust him to keep it to himself, and she knew it would be the first thing he'd use to blackmail her into doing something weird if he got the chance.

She couldn't deny that she was curious though. Why could she _see_ him? She'd been able to see Adam and Barbara too, but that hadn't really come as a surprise; she'd already believed in ghosts, or at least hoped in ghosts. From what he'd been saying this seemed like a whole other deal.

He was definitely stuck in there though. He wouldn't be trying to get a teenage girl to help him out if he had other options. The whole thing was giving her very unpleasant deja vu.

She doodled a little ghost in the margin.

The more she considered what he'd said the more she wondered if it could have it's advantages.

She added some little gravestones to her doodle, and then another ghost, just in case the other one was lonely.

He was a ghost, after all, he'd been dead for centuries from the sounds of it, and he'd worked with Juno. Maybe he could give her some answers about how things worked over there. Just because she said she would help him didn't mean she _had_ to.

“Lydia?”

She jumped guiltily, looking up to see her teacher and half a dozen members of the class looking at her.

“I would deeply appreciate it if you saved that for your art class, and redirected that energy into learning about the Spanish Inquisition.”

A few of her classmates giggled, and she shut her notebook sheepishly, pulling her textbook towards her instead.

In the end she decided to think it over for a few days, but Betelgeuse was not making it easy for her. Every time she passed by a mirror he would be there, trying to wheedle her into helping him. She ignored him steadfastly, and tried to only go into rooms with mirrors if there were other people in there with her. She took the opportunity spent more time outside, away from reflective surfaces, but unfortunately, this also left her alone with her thoughts.

She was on her way to spend her third afternoon that week clicking idle pictures and reading in the cemetery, when she caught sight of a familiar head bleach blonde permed hair bobbing down the pavement opposite her.

She ducked behind a car as Sylvia passed by. The reality of her actions caught up with her a second later, and she felt her face heat with fiery shame. This was so _stupid_. She shouldn't hiding from Sylvia, she'd dealt with way worse. After what she'd been through she shouldn't be hiding from her bullies like some scared little kid. She'd almost been married to a dead guy for God's sake, this was _nothing_. Yet she still couldn't get herself to move from her hiding spot until she was sure Sylvia had passed by.

_Coward, _she scolded herself.

Sylvia was just some spoilt brat with nothing in her head but air and daddy's money. And maybe some chemicals from all the hair treatments. Betelgeuse's words floated back to her and she pushed them away, feeling the heat in her face sink to her chest, a heavy anxious weight inside her. She and Sylvia were _nothing_ alike. The weather was turning cold now, and though there was no sign of rain, the sky was cloudier than it had been just last week, a cold blinding white mass above her. It wasn't really the weather for reading outdoors, but she didn't want to spend another day cooped up in the house now she knew for certain that Betelgeuse could be in any mirror. She didn't feel in so much of a hurry to get rid of him, now that she felt like she had a bargaining chip, but she still wasn't eager to be anywhere he might be listening. She squeaked open the gates to the cemetery as usual, ready to get some reading done in peace and quiet. She had just settled down and was flicking through the book looking for where she'd left off at, when something fell out from between the pages. She picked the object out of the grass and flipped it over.

_Alison Karswell_

_Philisophical Anthropologist, _

_Occultist, _

_Private Collector of Arcane and Mystical Items_

Cool thing to put on your business card, Lydia thought. There this was a phone number and an address- in New York- underneath this information. It must be the same place that Delia had spent the weekend at just recently, discussing whatever it was they were collaborating on. Presumably this was also the address where Karswell's library was located. Perhaps she could get some answers there; all of the books about ghosts from the living couldn't be _totally_ wrong. Maybe she could ask Delia if Karswell would let her see her library. Of course that would mean actually talking to Delia, but that was a sacrifice she was willing to make, if it ever came to that. She slipped the business card into her bag and settled down to read.

\-----

The Building was huge. So huge that in all the thousands of years she'd been in it Juno was sure there were still places inside it that she'd never been to. The Achives, for one, were so immesurably large that it was difficult to say where they even ended. Miles and miles of paper records from the Processing Department, from before they'd invented computers, stretched out in a veritable labyrinth of shelves, going back practically to the dawn of civilisation. Juno had written some of those papers herself when she'd first arrived. So had Betelgeuse and every other person in the Building. It was where they all started out. But in the grand scheme of things, Betelgeuse hadn't been dead all that long, and his records shouldn't be _that_ deep into the archives. If the files were in there, Juno would find them.

The Archives were adjacent to HR. There were billions of lifetimes worth of records down here, stretching back as far as humanity itself. Every year the Archive grew more and more shelves to accommodate the new files. On the surface they appeared very neat and well organised, but the further into the winding shelves you went, the more the papers yellowed and the more they stuck out at all angles from the files and boxes. She shuffled further and further in, through the shelves, and the surface level off contemporary office aesthetic faded into the styles of ages past, until eventually the shelves turned to stone and the manila files turned to sheafs of paper tied with string, some handbound like little books, some folded haphazardly and shoved in the gaps. She reached the right decade and began to look, moving old files around that hadn't been touched in centuries, looking for any stray papers that might have slipped out. All the files seem to be in decent order so someone must have been sent down to tidy them recently ; they had clean up crews for that sort of thing. In fact she was sure she heard someone shuffling about a few shelves over, even deeper into the Archives than she was. She didn't give it much thought, absorbed in her task.

After a fruitless day of searching she emerged from the Archives more frustrated than ever, brushing cobwebs from her hair. _Damn spiders._ How did they even _have_ those in here? She hadn't found anything; Lana had been right. Admitting defeat for now she lit up a cigarette and reluctantly headed back to work, none the wiser about the discrepancy in Betelgeuse's records. If it had been anyone else's file she would have chalked it up to a misplaced form and called it a day. Only she _knew_ Betelgeuse. He was as slippery as a swimming pool full of hagfish, and he'd picked up the ins and outs of Neitherworld bureaucracy fast. He knew a lot about how things worked around here. Not as much as her, but a lot. Something like this was a warning sign she'd be stupid to ignore. He'd caused her enough trouble as it was, she didn't want anymore.

She turned the corner into the bullpen and saw Danny dithering about outside her office. When he saw her approaching he rushed over, ringing his hands together worridley.

“There's uh- someone waiting for you in your office?” He said, shooting nervous glances over his shoulder at the door.

“I don't have any scheduled visits today Danny, tell them to come back with an appointment.”

“It's uh- he's not a client.”

Juno stepped into her office. There was a man in a black suit standing there, whistling boredly to himself. All members of Security wore boring black suits. It didn't look nearly as impressive as it should have, which she assumed was the Bureau's intention when they settled on it as a uniform. It just had the effect of making them look like undertakers, and since everyone was already dead anyway, no-one really paid them much attention. Security rarely had to actually _do_ anything; the Building wasn't a very eventful place, and everyone was already dead, so there weren't any huge concerns regarding anyone's safety. The only thing they regularly had to deal with was Betelgeuse, and well, they wouldn't have to worry about him anytime soon.

She knew this particular Officer quite well; he was usually the one who had to drag Betelgeuse in front of the judges kicking and screaming while Juno cleaned up the mess he'd left behind. He was the one who had brought him in when Juno had had the naming curse put on him. It was a less than pleasant memory, and seeing the Officer brought about a feeling of unease simply by association.

“Afternoon Ron,” she greeted. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Good afternoon, Juno,” he said, a little more formally than usual. Business, then.

“I got about a weeks worth of paper work to do,” she warned, eyeing him warily. Whatever this was about she did not want it to lead to _more_ paperwork, and whenever Security was involved that was usually what happened.

He nodded, understanding.“Don't worry, it won't take long.” He smiled blandly at her. Ron was not a very interesting person. Even when dealing with Betelgeuse, he'd usually just sighed and gotten on with things. He had the all the personality of plain yoghurt. “I'm just here for that.” He pointed to the file she had tucked under her arm.

“What?” She asked, taken aback.

“That's his file right? The Bureau told me to come get it.”  
“Betelgeuse's file? Why?” She asked, mystified. Betelgeuse was a pain in everyone's ass, but the Bureau rarely handled any files personally.

Ron shrugged. “Beats me.”

“Why did they need you to come down here just to get this?” She waved the file, raising an eyebrow at him in question.

“Hey, I just go where they tell me,” he said with another shrug. Ron shrugged a lot. He wasn't a great thinker.

Juno frowned. Something wasn't adding up here. They could have sent anyone down to come and get this file. Why did they send an Officer? Officers usually weren't even Suicides, they were employed from the Neitherworld's residential areas, some of the only staff the Bureau outsourced. Like all the other people who had been fortunate enough to have the foresight not to take their own lives, the members of Security had had un-lives to live outside of the Building. They weren't confined to paying off their debts by working to help the rest of the deceased population of Earth constantly coming and going from the mortal plane to the Neitherworld.

He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers impatiently, and she realised she'd been standing holding it awkwardly for just a minute too long.

“The file, Juno?” He asked, expectantly.

Her hand twitched. Briefly, she considered not handing it over. Which was an insane thought. The Bureau were in charge, and they took orders directly from the Powers That Be. It was like trying to tell the sun 'no' when it was about to rise in the morning.Jerkily, she held out the file, and he took it, flicking through it briefly, before tucking it under his arm.

“See you around Juno,” he said, with a polite smile, striding from the room.

Juno was left alone with nothing but her latest batch of paperwork and her racing thoughts.

\-----

Barbara sighed, rearranging her calypso records for the third time that evening. Lydia had gone to bed early again. Usually they had to remind her at least twice that it was time she get to sleep, but lately she'd been heading to bed at least an hour earlier than usual.

And Barbara was _worried_. Really, this was what she'd always assumed having children would feel like, except she thought she'd get a more of a run up before jumping straight into trying to parent an angsty teenager.

She shuffled through the pile, straightening a few that had slipped a little too far out of their cases, and wondering if organising them into purely alphabetical order, or into artist and _then_ alphabetical would be best. Either way they would be a mess in a weeks time, she never could seem to keep them tidy.

Barbara couldn't have been happier with how things had been going since they'd all agreed to live together. Lydia was like the daughter Barbara would never have. She loved the time they'd spent together the past year, the things they talked about, the little art projects they did together sometimes. She seemed so much happier than she had when they'd first met. So much more _vibrant_, somehow. But the last few days, things had seemed a little..._off_. If Barbara didn't know better she could have sworn Lydia was avoiding them.

Shouldn't this have been easier? She thought as she put the records back into their box. She could remember being a teenager, and it had kinda sucked, shouldn't that make it easier to understand Lydia?

But Barbara had never been suicidal. She'd hated history class and Billy Landis because he made fun of her braces, but she'd never wanted to- not-live.

Lydia had wanted to not-live.

After things had calmed down, the night Barbara had ridden a sandworm through another dimension and it had eaten Betelgeuse, Lydia had been talking with her parents. Barbara and Adam had offered to give them a little space, they had plenty of time to figure things out, and it looked like the Deetzes could use a few minutes to themselves, so they'd gone to inspect the damage done to the house. Adam had tried to find out where Maxie Dean and Sarah had ended up, and Barbara had wandered in and out of rooms righting furniture and straightening picture frames.

And then she'd gone into Lydia's room. The dressing table had been knocked askew, and she'd gone in to straighten it. The drawer had been hanging open.

And she'd seen the note, inside. An innocuous white sheet, blue lined, red margin. Nothing special about it. She'd picked it up, not thinking much of it, until the odd word on the page had jumped out of her and she'd realised what she was holding. She'd read it through. Her hand had shook and she covered her mouth.

“Barbara? Adam? Where are you guys?”

She'd jumped, almost dropping the note as Lydia's voice carried upstairs. She'd put the note back in the drawer and righted the dressing table, closed the door behind her, and went to find Adam. They'd had spent the rest of the evening discussing things with the Deetzes, and Lydia- she seemed fine. In fact she seemed happier than Barbara had ever seen her. That horrid wedding dress had melted away and she was wearing her normal (for a given value of the word) clothes once more. She introduced her parents to them, and began talking excitedly about them all living together. There had been a lot going on, Barbara reasoned. Maybe Lydia hadn't meant it like _that_-maybe she'd just wanted to be with them, like she'd said in the attic. Maybe she'd just wanted someone to pay attention to her- to see how unhappy she was. She hadn't left the note out in the open, after all, where anyone could find it. It had been hidden.

It felt like a violation of Lydia's trust somehow, even though she'd seen it entirely accidentally. She'd told Adam about it, just a few days later, unable to keep it to herself. She'd never believed in keeping secrets from him, and this had been no exception. She watched Lydia carefully the next few days, just in case, but she seemed perfectly fine. She thought about telling her parents, but she couldn't imagine them reacting very calmly about it, and she didn't want to upset Lydia over nothing, not when she seemed so happy.

But still, she _worried_. It was what mothers _did_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope it reads believably that Barbara wouldn't tell anyone (bar Adam) about Lydia's note. I tried to get it to come across that she was just chalking it up to Lydia recently discovering that ghosts are real etc, than any real desire to take her own life, but I'm not sure how successful I was ^^;
> 
> I'm currently trying to restructure the next few chapters and there's a scene I've had written for ages that I'm now trying desperately to work in because I'm not sure if it fits anywhere anymore and I' going to be gutted if I have to scrap it ;-;
> 
> Also I got a book about Hermetic alchemy for Christmas last year and when I was reading it I realised there was some stuff in it that would be perfect for combining with the framework I already had for this fic, so some of the things that will pop up later are based on actual things that I've been reading about. Some of it lined up eerily well to some of the stuff I already had planned.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long delay on this chapter! I meant to take a short break to replot future chapters but I completely lost steam for writing this for quite a while. I did manage to rework a lot of plot details though and I am way happier with the direction this is going than I was before. Having said that some of the plot points I set up in previous chapters will now lead to very different (and more thematically coherent) places than I had planned, but I'm hoping they all still come together OK in the end.
> 
> I have a lot of notes and different bits and pieces written for upcoming chapters but I have to be honest, the chapter following this one is a complete mess right now and it needs a lot of work, so I can't say when it'll be ready. I'm still trying to get back into the swing of this story, ironically it's the Beej and Lydia segments that I'm struggling with, all the stuff with Juno in the Neitherworld is coming a lot easier to me :')
> 
> It hasn't been beta'd so feel free to point out spelling mistakes etc for me to correct!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading this far, and for every comment and kudos <3 I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

_When he awoke he was in unfamiliar surroundings. He blinked. Hell didn't look quite how he expected (and he had to be in hell, suicide was a mortal sin, after all). He rubbed his neck gingerly, but there was no pain, not anymore. Even through the haze of alcohol he'd been able to feel the rope cutting into his neck, but now he felt nothing. It wasn't as much of a relief as he'd thought it would be. The room he found himself in was dimly lit by vibrant green lights, like will 'o the wisps, sitting in little alcoves along the stone walls. There was a long line of plain wooden benches, like church pews, filling the room. They were sparsely occupied; most people seemed to waiting in line behind a desk to be directed through the door at the far end of the room._

“_New arrival?” a despondent voice to his left said. He jumped, and turned to face the speaker, a thin man with a drawn, bored expression. There were stains around his mouth and he was covered in a sickly cobwebbing of veins that stood out starkly against his pale skin. He nodded, unable to find his tongue. He made to join the line, seeing as it was what everyone else was doing, but the man stopped him, holding out a thin, blue-veined hand._

“_No,” he said, voice barely changing. “You don't go through this way.” He pointed to a nondescript door on the far right wall- opposite where the line of waiting people were. “You go through there.” _

“_What's-”_

“_Go on. They'll explain everything.”_

_Reluctantly, he did as he was told._

\-----

It was dark in the library. Night had fallen sometime ago, and Alison had switched on the lamp at her desk, but otherwise had done nothing else to light the frankly cavernous space. She had an office, a very nice one, but she preferred to work in the library. It felt right somehow, to be surrounded by all those books as she worked. By the dark wood and polished brasses she had chosen especially. She'd taken great care with the décor; a library ought to _feel_ like a library, in her opinion. You ought to walk in and feel the weight of the words in the air. She thought she'd done quite a good job of that. Looking up from her work her eyes swept across the immaculately arranged leatherbound volumes stretching across the walls all around her, until they fell upon the empty alcove on the left side of the room. She sighed.

Delia Deetz was- not what Alison had been expecting. Oh, she liked her well enough, though she was rather neurotic at times. But she'd really been hoping for someone more...spiritually attuned. _Ah well_, she thought, still gazing tiredly across at the empty space she had reserved for Delia's sculpture. At the very least she'd have a nice art piece to occupy her moments with when she couldn't stand the sight of 'The Book' anymore. Speaking of the book, she peered at her notes over her glasses, sighing heavily at her lack of progress. She still hadn't managed to make heads nor tails of what sort of cipher the book used. It's yellowing pages mocked her in their inscrutability. The drunken scrawl of Mercurio Tribellum, 18th century amateur alchemist, swam erratically in front of her tired eyes. She pulled off her glasses carelessly, letting them drop to the desk. She rubbed her eyes, which didn't really seem to do much except sort of...spread the fatigue around a little. She checked the pocketwatch ticking idly by her elbow. 03:36 AM. Goodness.

That was enough for one day, she decided, slipping the glasses off and closing the book gently. Its aged leather cover was cracking round the edges, and the gold embossing was almost entirely worn away. She lifted it carefully from her work table and laid it gently back into the drawer of her desk, where she locked it in securely for the night. Not that it really mattered. The book didn't have much value to anyone but her, and so far it was failing to live up to her expectations. It was an amateur effort, on the surface, a simple alchemical text, but if her research proved correct it could house information that would change the world. The thought that there might not be a cipher in there at all had occurred to her numerous times over the last few years, but she tried not to examine _that_ thought too closely. It got more and more upsetting a notion as the years passed.

It would be the most important discovery ever made, she was sure. And all those academics who had derided her choices in study would eat their well spoken and well bred words.

Leaning over the desk she clicked off her lamp and stretched, shoulders cracking a little too loudly. She was really rather too old to be sitting up so late these days. It was not a comforting reminder. She clicked off the lamp and headed up to bed. Though she was an avid believer than life did not end with death, she would really much prefer to get her work finished while she was still alive, instead of trying to fight with whatever hurdles might come with being dead to continue her work from beyond the grave. Surely being a ghost would make it quite difficult to hold a pen.

\-----

When Lydia's bedroom mirror was finally replaced, she stared at it from the hall for a long time. The moving men had shuffled out of her room sometime ago, leaving the new dresser behind. She hadn't been able to bring herself to go inside yet. Avoiding Betelgeuse had been a lot easier when she'd had a mirror free sanctuary to take refuge in. But she couldn't stand out in the hall forever, and she couldn't ignore her problems any more. She took a breath, strode inside, closing the door behind her, and faced her new mirror like she was staring down a firing squad. For a moment she just stood there, looking at her own reflection, and seeing just a girl. A strange and unusual one perhaps, but- just a girl. She set her jaw, hardened her expression. If she was doing this she needed to be more than just a girl. She'd been a scared little kid for too long and this was where she was stopping it.

“Hey,” she said with a boldness she didn't really feel. “Are you there?” Her own reflection continued to stare back at her. The mirror remained still. _He couldn't have just gone, could he?_ She thought suddenly. Not after all that time he'd spent pestering her, he wouldn't just-vanish. She tried to think when the last time she'd seen him was. A few days at least. It doesn't sit well with her that he could just up and go after all that. They had unfinished business, he wasn't _allowed_ to just ditch her!

“Hey,” she said again, louder, impatient and irritable. Still nothing. Fine. _Fine_. If he wasn't going to answer then she wasn't going to help him, simple as that! She didn't need _him_ for anything. She scowled at the mirror, and saw only her own face reflected back at her in childish rage. She sighed, letting the anger smooth from her face, leaving her looking tired and drained, and just a girl once more.

“What am I _doing_?” she asked herself. _Stupid_. She should just forget about him, the whole idea was _stupid_ she should just- she turned from the mirror, ready to leave her room and put the whole thing behind her.

“I dunno kid, what are you doing?” A gravelly voice sounded from her bedroom.

She spun back around to face the mirror to see him floating there as casual as can be, looking his usual disgusting self.

“Wasting my time talking to you apparently,” she said, avoiding eye contact, suddenly self conscious at how _relieved_ she felt to see him there.

“Hey, _you_ were the one that called _me_, OK? Don't get pissy with me, I didn't do anything,” he told her. “Well, this time, anyway,” he amended after a moment.

“Alright, alright, sorry,” she said, rolling her eyes and approaching the mirror once more. She didn't miss the startled look that flashed briefly across his face at her apology.

“OK,” she said, seating herself in front of the newly replaced mirror. “I've given what you said some thought. Here's what's gonna happen.”

He clapped his hands together, rubbing them conspiratorially, and floated closer, eagerly listening.

“Hey, now we're talkin'! Well, c'mon, don't keep me in suspense kid,” he said when she paused to collect herself. She took a deep breath.

“I'll help you try and figure out whatever is going on here,” she said, clasping her hands together on the table. “And you tell me everything you know about how the whole being dead thing works.”

“What, that's it?” He asked, blinking at her, expression faltering. “Don't want me to scare anyone? Routine possession? Fake poltergeist activity?”

“No,” she said firmly.

He shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Hey, well, if that's all you want, ain't none of my business. Personally I'd have gone for something more exciting but-”

“And I have some conditions,” she pressed on, leaning forward ever so slightly.

“Always read the fuckin' fine print,” he muttered to himself, sighing dramatically. “Right then, c'mon,” he said, rolling his eyes and gesturing for her to continue. “Let's hear what ya got.”

She managed to unclench her hands and cleared her throat, beginning to count off on her fingers.

“One,” she said, “do not spy on me, or my family-”

“Hey, I don't got a lot of options kid-”

“Don't interrupt-” she said, frowning at him. _Don't let him walk all over you_, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Delia's said in the back of her head. “Two, you only talk to me if I talk to you first-”

“You gotta be _shittin_' me kid-”

“No,” she said firmly. “If we're doing this you need to respect my privacy. If I call for you, _then_ you can come.”

“I'm not a fucking _dog_-” he spluttered, incensed.

“Three-" she went on, talking loudly over him, her confidence growing by the second. "_Don't_ bring up the note ever again. Under any circumstances, got it?” She demanded eyes blazing as she stared him down.

“Yeah, yeah sure, it's a sore spot, I understand,” he said, holding up a placating hand. The gesture was entirely disingenuous but she didn't expect any less from him.

“I doubt that,” she scoffed. “So, do we have a deal?” She asked, eyeing him shrewdly and hoping he couldn't tell how hard her heart was hammering in her chest.

He glared at her, expression twisting nastily, lips twitching like he wanted to argue but wasn't really sure what to say. He ran a hand down his face in exasperation, sighing and shaking his head like he was about to do _her_ a favour, but Lydia was sure it was all for show. If he'd had any power here he would be using it; s_he_ was calling the shots this time, she thought with no small amount of relish.

"Look, you need me," she said, feeling a small spike of smugness when he snarled at her for saying it out loud. "And the only way you'll get my help is if you do what I say. So- _do we have a deal_?"

He watched her again, and Lydia refused to look away. Whatever inner conflict he was struggling with was written plain on his face, and she stared down the ticing and twitching of his pallid face until-

“OK, OK” he said at last, thought it looked like it pained him to do so. “We got a deal.”

Lydia grinned.

\----

_He would have preferred Hell over this, he thought, as he was directed down yet another gloomy corridor, that led to yet another flight of stairs for him to descend. He must have been miles down by now, if that sort of thing applied in this place. Eventually, he exited a door which led to a room much like the one he'd started in, only not nearly as cheery. There was another set of pews, seating another host of- well. Ghosts, he supposed. Spirits. The Unquiet Dead. No one looked up when the door squeaked open and he let himself in. No one looked up when he shuffled into the room and slid onto the end of one of the pews. No one really seemed inclined to speak to him. Everyone looked as despondent as he felt. He wondered if this was purgatory, rather than Hell. Or maybe they were just waiting to get them all together so they could send them all down at once. Was probably more convenient, in the long run, to do that sort of thing in groups._

_There was a woman at the head of the room; she wore an apron and had her hair secured in a neat bun at the back of her head.“That the lot for today?” she asked the man standing stoically at the door, who nodded sharply in response to her question. “Right!” She clapped her hands briskly.“You're all here because you saw fit, in your infinite wisdom, to take your own lives,” _

_There was a nervous shuffling, and he thought _This is it, this is where we go down to the fiery pit-

“_Fat lot of good it did any of us, ey?” she continued, with a chuckle, leaning forward as if addressing a class of errant schoolchildren. In fact the whole thing was reminding him rather disturbingly of Sunday school. At least on the days that he'd bothered to show up. __She clasped her hands behind her back and paced the length of the room in front of the pews, the great curtains of her skirts swishing as she walked. How did that work, anyway? He thought. Surely your clothes didn't become ghosts with you?“_

_Anyhow,” the woman was saying, “as Suicides, I'm afraid you've all got to pay your dues, so to speak.”_

_Everyone tracked her movements back and forth monotonously with their eyes. No one said anything._

“_Very disrespectful to the natural order, taking your own life like that,” she continued, nodding assuredly to herself. _

_He didn't see how it was disrespectful to anyone but himself what he did with his own life, but then _ _again he wasn't an expert in that area. The woman continued, oblivious to his inner thoughts._

“_You've got to give something back to balance out what you took. That's what things are about. Balance. You're all new arrivals, and as such, you'll be starting out in processing.”_

_She indicated a door to her right. It looked like every other door that he'd passed through to get to this one._

“_As things progress you'll be moved upstairs,” she jabbed a finger at the ceiling.“You'll all have the same opportunities, don't you worry. Very fair, is the afterlife.” She nodded wisely. “Some of you might not even make it upstairs; you might balance up long before your services in processing are up!”_

“_What d'you mean 'balance up'?” A voiced piped up from somewhere to his left._

_She swiveled in the direction of the speaker, who shrank back into the crowd under her scrutiny.“You've got a service to perform here, to the nature of things. To the universe!” She gestured to the air around her. “Got to pay your dues. Once you've done that, you can move on, wherever you like. But until then your parameters are the Building, and the Building only.” She gestured around again to indicate that they were, in fact, currently in 'the Building'._

“_Can't go anywhere else, unless you're promoted to caseworker; then you can visit the mortal realm on business, provided you fill out the proper papers.”_

_She clapped her hands again. “Right then! Gotta get you lot processed. Let's get to it!” Everyone took that as their cue to shuffle out into the next room. The woman watched them all pass, hands on her hips. He didn't move. He watched the line of downtrodden figures traipse through the door the same way that you might watch a funeral procession marching down a road._

“_I don't want to do this,” he found himself saying to no one in particular._

_The woman's eyes swiveled to him, and though her expression was not unkind there was a hardness to her gaze that spoke of several life times worth of years spent standing where she was right now, and of a conversation had too many times to count._

“_Nobody wants to do it,” she said. “But we all have to pay our dues. Remember, it's all about balance.”_

\---

Juno didn't really need Betelgeuse's file. That was what was bothering her the most. She'd seen it a hundred times already, and the Bureau probably knew that. She knew the damn thing inside and out, and she hadn't needed any of the actual information in it. So why had the Bureau decided to _remove_ the file? It felt...pointed. Like a _warning_.

And Juno.

Juno couldn't let it _go_. She _should_ let it go, no good would come of going against the Bureau's wishes, and yet still she felt certain she should pursue it, chase down that little bit of paper until it gave her answers. She was _sure_ it was important. But wasn't that a lesson she had learnt in life? That you couldn't be sure of anything? The last time she'd been sure of anything she'd put a knife to her throat and- well. The rest was history. She signed off on her latest file of paperwork, closing the folder and shoving it aside for the next one in the pile. There was a time in her life when she'd been sure she knew how the world worked. And then she'd died and it had turned out she didn't know anything at all. And now the world she'd known was gone, fallen to the ages, crumbled to dust, crushed by ash, excavated and renovated all over the world. The objects she had considered everyday were now crusted with dirt and housed in little glass cases as if they were precious somehow. _Hah_. Life was precious. Hairbrushes, not so much.

She knew Danny was starting to get worried. He was new here, it was only natural. He didn't know how this place worked, not like she did. The Bureau would bluster and moan but at the end of the day, she was _supposed_ to look into stuff like this. That paperwork was _important_. The whole place ran on it, and she knew first hand what kind of trouble could be caused by one misplaced sheet of paper. She finished off another form and checked her watch, grimacing when she saw the time. She shrugged on her jacket and extracted yet another file from the cabinet, heading out of her office. She had a housecall to make today, one she'd been dreading all week. It was for a family that had died in a fire 50 or so years ago, they'd been having trouble with their newest occupants, who were not nearly as amicable as their last lot. Juno knew how this would go, even before she'd dropped her travel form off at The Gate and stepped through into the mortal plane, finding herself in a drab looking apartment in Ohio.

The charred ghost of a housewife was there to greet her with a glare, hands on hips in the universal gesture of overworked and overbearing mothers everywhere. Juno listened vaguely as the she complained about the lack of speed regarding their housing referral, about how it was a disgrace they should wait for so long, and wouldn't _anyone_ think of her children-

“Mrs. Randall,” Juno interrupted. She _really_ wasn't in the mood for this. “There's nothing I can do- you're on the waiting list and that's all I can tell you.” She exhaled a satisfyingly large cloud of smoke, which floated into the woman's face. She didn't cough- she didn't need to, but her eye twitched as she no doubt recalled the previous times she'd voiced her displeasure at Juno bringing cigarettes into her home.

“I would prefer you not smoke here Ms. Juno,” Mrs. Randall said stiffly.

Juno ignored her.

“You're on the list,” she reiterated. “Some people don't even get that far until their fifth application. You should count yourself lucky; you and your family will probably be out of here in a couple of decades time, some people have to wait a lot longer than that.”

She discorporated back to the Neitherworld before Mrs. Randall could gear up to start another rant. Normally caseworkers got in trouble for that sort of thing- people could file complaints, and no doubt Mrs. Randall would be gearing up to write a strongly worded letter to the ethics department in HR. Juno didn't care. She did good work for the Bureau and she knew it. One little complaint from Mrs. Josephine Randall was hardly going to get her reprimanded after all she'd done over the years. She handed in her return form at the ingoing terminal and thanked whatever deity was out there that at least she wasn't due to see Mrs Randall again for at least another 15 years.

15 years wasn't really a long time to Juno, not anymore, but it was long enough. She swept back through the corridors that lead to her office. Every time she went through the terminal into the land of the living things had changed just that little bit more. People looked different, spoke different, thought different. Everything living could change, that was what set them apart from the dead. But Time never stopped moving, even when you were dead. It felt so pressing when you were alive, always so many things to do and no time to do it in, a measurement of days lived and loved and lost, but without life, what was time? Just a measurement, like how many feet there was left if the corridor to her office or how many inches high her filing cabinets were. 

Back in her office once more, she looked at the pile of fresh paperwork now waiting on her desk and sighed. To Juno, Time was an stack of paperwork that never ran out no matter how much she seemed to get through. There was always more of it, just around the corner. Time went on, and so did Juno, whether she wanted to or not. 

\---

Stupid little brat with her stupid rules. He could do whatever he wanted. He wasn't going to be taking orders from anyone ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope Lydia and Betelgeuse's arrangement reads OK. I didn't want to like...keep labouring the point that they're only taking each others word for things in this situation but I also wanted to move tf on and get into the next leg of the story because I'm very excited about some of the scenes I've got coming up soon. Now that Beej and Lydia are on sort of speaking terms we have an opportunity to get some world building exposition in here, so look forward to that next time!
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> This fic isn't beta'd so if you spot any spelling mistakes I won't be offended if you point them out!  
Thanks for reading, I hope you stick around for the rest <3  
Also, apologies for the basic summary, I wasn't sure what I could put without spoiling the whole fic ^^;
> 
> The title is taken from a Walter de la Mare poem called "Two Epitaphs".


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